SHILLONG: As many as 260 primary school teachers, whose services were terminated following the education scam, have sought the intervention of the High Court of Meghalaya.
A writ petition was filed by the aggrieved teachers and All Meghalaya Primary School Teachers’ Association.
During the recent hearing of the petition, the single bench headed by Justice Ranjit Vasantrao More deferred the matter to be heard on August 3.
The CBI has already charge sheeted former Education Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh, retired government officials, JD Sangma and AI Lyngdoh for manipulating score sheets of candidates, who had appeared for the tests.
Earlier, after the first CBI report had revealed irregularities in the recruitment in five centers, the government had terminated the service of 246 ‘tainted’ teachers.
On June 29, the education department terminated the service of another batch of 260 tainted teachers after the CBI probed the remaining centers.
During the hearing, S. Khurshid, senior counsel for the petitioner submitted that the termination orders were based on the decisions of the Division Bench in 2011 and all connected matters taken up on November 2, 2017 and review petition of 2018.
The counsel further submitted that petitioners had approached the Apex Court in 2019 and the division bench of the court had issued notice and directed the parties to maintain status quo.
The counsel also made a submission that the present petition is in respect of the teachers of nine centres.
However, in the light of the interim order of the apex court, the issue raised in the petition deserves consideration, the counsel said.
ND Chullai, Additional Advocate General submitted that he will go through the petition and file affidavit-in-reply to the petition. He also sought some time in this regard.