By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Two anti-graft organizations — Civil Society Women’s Organization (CSWO) and Meghalaya Right to Information Movement (MRTIM) — have demanded police action against those named by the CBI in the teacher recruitment scam that rocked the State last week.
The CBI in its report had reportedly named five Cabinet ministers, the Assembly Speaker and six legislators of the Congress-led coalition government besides other politicians for allegedly “tampering” with the score-sheets of the candidates applying for the post of assistant teachers in Government Lower Primary School in 2010.
Demanding thorough investigation into the case, the anti-graft activists said the offence committed disclosed by the CBI report were “cognizable offences” urging the police to punish the culprits, how high they may be, involved in the commission of the offence.
The CSWO and MRTIM lodged an FIR with the police on Wednesday seeking action against those named by the CBI in its report.
The CSWO president Agnes Kharshiing in the FIR, which was lodged at Laitumkhrah Police station, said the report has clearly mentioned that former Education Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh had instructed the then Director of Director Elementary and Mass Education (DEME) JD Sangma and two of her supporters to tamper, forge the score-sheets by applying white fluid “wherever there is need to increase the marks and deduct the marks of the deserving candidates.”
The former Education Minister committed breach of trust by allowing such large scale manipulation to take place for political gain and for some extraneous considerations, the CSWO president said.
She (Ampareen) in connivance with other members of the Assembly, who are named in the report acted illegally, committed the fraud by tampering the score-sheets, Kharshiing said. She further said Ampareen and others have abused their powers by instructing DEME director to furnish false information by publishing the tampered and manipulated marks. The CSWO president also questioned the role of then Principal Secretary Education, PS Thangkhiew and the officers who signed in the score-sheets saying they did not verify the authenticity of the documents. A single bench of the Gauhati High Court had ordered for a CBI inquiry into the alleged anomalies in the appointment of assistant teachers in government lower primary schools in Meghalaya after adjudicating on a case of nine writ petitions filed by more than 100 aggrieved applicants from various districts of the state during April-May 2010.