By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The high level committee consisting members from the Education department, entrusted to probe the irregularities in the appointment of government teachers, has already started its work.
However, the probe being initiated by the Education department has come under scanner since the CBI findings are against the same department.
Sources questioned how the Education department could probe against itself since the department is itself responsible for the manipulation of marks.
The formation of the high level committee was necessitated following an August directive by the Division Bench of the Gauhati High Court to have another inquiry to fix responsibility after the submission of the probe report by the CBI.
Official sources said that Secretary, Education, EP Kharbhih will be the chairman of the high level committee, which will have Director, Higher and Technical Education, CCM Mihsil, in addition to a Deputy Director, Education, as members.
Though the order of the Division bench of the Gauhati High Court to constitute the inquiry was in August, the education department formed the committee only last month.
Sources added that the committee will submit its report within six months.
It was after Justice T Vaiphei of the Gauhati High Court, in October last year, directed the CBI to probe the alleged anomalies in the appointment of assistant teachers in government LP schools, that the CBI took up the case.
However, the State Government later appealed before the Division Bench on the need to institute a separate inquiry.
The Division Bench, in its hearing, while directing the Principal Secretary, Education to institute the high level scrutiny committee, also said that ‘while under taking this exercise, the authorities shall also take beneficial assistance and guidance of the findings, if any, recorded legitimately by the CBI in its enquiry report now lying in the custody of the authorities. Needless to say, it will also be duty of the State Government not to spare any officer in authority, howsoever, he may be, if any deliberate complicity is found in the matter of vitiating or otherwise interfering with the selection process’.
