SHILLONG: The High Court of Meghalaya has concluded the hearing on the education scam case on Friday and reserved its judgment.
On May 22, the Division Bench of the High Court of Meghalaya comprising Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice V.P Vaish started fresh hearing on the matter to be concluded on Friday after a direction from the Supreme Court where the case has been pending.
During the hearing, the Court examined both the reports of the CBI and the High Level Scrutiny Committee (HLSC) related to the teachers’ recruitment scam, besides hearing the counsels for the petitioners and respondents, advocate general and others.
Sources said the nature of the verdict is yet to be known as the matter is sensitive.
In 2009, the State Government carried out recruitment for the post of assistant teachers in lower primary schools.
Later in 2010, after sensing anomalies in the recruitment, the affected candidates filed an RTI query. The reply revealed irregularities in the process of recruitment that prompted them to file a petition in the erstwhile Shillong Bench of the Gauhati High Court in 2010.
In 2011, the single bench of the court ordered a CBI inquiry into the matter and the probe report was submitted by the agency in 2012.
The CBI report had mentioned the name of then Education Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh, besides highlighting the names of ministers and MLAs who had recommended their own candidates for the job. The name of then Director of Mass and Elementary Education J.D. Sangma also figured in the report.
Later, following a petition from the government in 2012, the Division Bench asked the government to constitute the HLSC.
The HLSC in its report submitted to the government in 2013 segregated ‘tainted and non-tainted’ candidates and recommended termination of tainted candidates.
The following year, after the Education department terminated the services of tainted candidates, they filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court and there was interim stay on the order of the Education department. The case has been pending in the Supreme Court for the last three years and in March this year, the Supreme Court wanted the High Court to have a fresh look at the matter in the light of the two reports (CBI and HLSC) and after hearing the parties concerned.
During the hearing on Friday, counsel P. Yobin filed an affidavit on June 15 on behalf of some appellants bringing on record, inter alia, the order dated November 30, 2011, whereby the services of the wait-list candidates at Jowai, Amlarem and Khliehriat were regularised.
In this regard, the government advocate was requested to procure the office file related to the matter and subsequently he placed the file before the court for perusal.
Counsel K. Paul has placed before the court the synopsis with clarifications about the particulars of some candidates and the recommendations with observations with regard to them in the reports of the CBI and the HLSC.
Government Advocate P. Agarwal has also placed before the court a list of dates of the major events in these cases.
In the long-drawn arguments in the batch of matters, the Court heard Advocate General, B.P Todi with P. Agarwal and K.P Bhattacharjee for the State – Appellants and MZ Ahmed, Senior Advocate with A.M Dutta, S. Chakrawarty, Senior Advocate with M. Mahanta, and counsels P. Yobin, H.L Shangreiso, N.M Mansuri, S. Dey, A.G Momin, S.M Suna, B. Khyriem, P.T Sangma, K. Paul, M.F Qureshi, S.D Upadhyaya, R. Jha, K. Barua, K.C Gautam, N. Gurung and L. Phanjom for the respective parties.
