‘Black deeds with white fluid’ led to cancelling of teachers’ appointment

SHILLONG: The High Court of Meghalaya had no other option but to cancel the entire appointment of LP school teachers since the scam was at a gigantic proportion.
“It had been a matter of such inconceivable black deeds with white fluid where the entire process could only be cancelled as being fraudulent,” the division bench had said in its 105-page order on Thursday.
The reports of CBI and High Level Scrutiny Committee (HLSC) quoting former education official JD Sangma had referred to tampering and applying white ink on the mark sheets of deserving candidates as per the instruction of then Education Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh.
According to the court, there had been gigantic manipulations by way of obliterations, insertions and cuttings in the score sheets of the five Centres.
The minute details in that regard have been specified in the report of the CBI as also in the report of the High Level Scrutiny Committee; and after perusing the reports and a large number of score-sheets and other documents, “we have not even a wee bit of hesitation in recording a clear finding that there had been large scale manipulations in the five centres and the entire selection process in relation to these centres cannot but be said to have been vitiated”, the court said.
The order said given the set of facts and circumstances and looking to the enormity of manipulations, there will not be any justification to make an attempt to “sift the grain (if any) from the chaff. It is noticed that the matters of alterations and manipulations had not been few or far between; rather they had been too excessive in number, practically acquiring an all-engulfing status”.