It perhaps is a setback-time for the ruling YSRCP. It is suffering repeated rebuffs and reversals in the courts of law. The latest setback is with regards to the fees reimbursement scheme, which YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has rechristened as Jagananna Vidya Deevena. The AP High Court in its latest verdict said that the payment of the reimbursed fee should be paid to the educational institution and not to the parents of the students of ITI, polytechnic, degree, engineering and medicine courses.

Ever since Jagan came to power, he changed the modalities of the scheme and began paying the mother of the student rather than the educational institutions. By doing this, he tried to give an impression that he was doing something different and that he was honouring the womenfolk. But, in most cases, it was found that the mothers, who got the amounts, were not paying to the educational institutions. As a result, the colleges were incurring huge losses for the last two years.

One such educational institution – Sri Krishnadevaraya group of educational institutions – has knocked the doors of the AP High Court on the issue. The court which heard the arguments, ruled that the government fro now on credit the amounts into the accounts of the educational institutions and not to the mothers. Significantly, the court has observed that the parents were prone to misuse the amounts credited into their accounts and thus default on paying to the educational institutions.

This sure is a shock to the Jagan government, which has brought in this system to appease the women voters. Now it remains to be seen whether the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government abides by the order of the AP High Court or approaches the Supreme Court for relief. Significantly, the scheme originally put in place by YS Jagan’s father late YSR, envisaged reimbursement of the fee to the educational institutions.