The excitement of one of the toppers in the Uttar Pradesh board exams this year turned to disappointment when the cheque presented to him by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath bounced and he was also made to pay the penalty for it.
Alok Misra, the seventh rank holder in the Class 10 exams of the Uttar Pradesh Secondary Education Board (UPSEB), was called to Lucknow on May 29 for a felicitation function and given a cheque of Rs 100,000 by the chief minister for securing 93.5 per cent marks in the exams.
His father deposited the cheque in a bank in Lucknow on June 5 and was subsequently informed that it had bounced due to a mismatch of signatures. He was also made to pay the penalty for it.
The cheque presented to the student had the signature of Raj Kumar Yadav, District Inspector of Schools, Barabanki.
"I was very happy to receive the cheque from the chief minister...but came to know that it had bounced two days after it was deposited...it led to some disappointment," Alok, a student of Young Stream Inter College, said.
When contacted, Yadav said the student was given another cheque and the matter resolved. No other student had come up with a similar complaint, he added.
Terming the matter "serious", District Magistrate Uday Bhanu Tripathi said action would be taken if any laxity was found.