SHILLONG: After the single bench of the High Court of Meghalaya headed by Judge SR Sen had dismissed the plea to hand over the criminal aspect of the education scam case to the CBI, the intervention of the Division Bench of the Court was sought by the petitioner on Tuesday.
A writ appeal was filed by Advocate N Syngkon on behalf of the petitioner Agnes Kharshiing challenging the order of the single bench passed on October 3.
The contention of the single Judge was that the case filed in the High Court is similar to the pending case in the Supreme Court, which, however was challenged by the petitioner by stating that while the case in Apex Court is of a civil nature and the one filed before the High Court is related to the criminal angle of the case after police failed to make any headway into the probe.
The petitioner in the writ appeal filed before the division bench on Tuesday urged the court to set aside the order of the single bench.
The petitioner also wanted the court to hand over the pending Laitumkhrah PS Case No. 62(7) 2011 to the CBI with a direction to complete the investigation within a stipulated period as fixed by the court.
The stand of the petition is that the single Judge failed to appreciate that as per the normal procedure the basic requirement prescribed in the criminal procedure is FIR – investigation- charge sheet-trial and conviction.
“But there is neither an FIR which is subject matter of a case before the Supreme Court as far as the manipulation of marks pertaining to recruitment of assistant teachers in lower primary school is concerned, nor any prayer to hand over the Laitumkhrah PS case No. 62(7) of 2011 to CBI and as such the subject matter before the Supreme Court and the subject matter before the High Court is totally different from one another and on this ground alone the order dated 03.10.2016 passed by the single Judge is liable to be set aside and quashed”, the appeal said.
