GUWAHATI: When the Congress government in Meghalaya allowed bureaucrats to buy land at `1 per sq ft in 2007, Agnes Kharshiing was the lone protestor. She moved Gauhati High Court, accusing the government of grabbing land by violating the Meghalaya Land Transfer Regulation Act, 1972. But eventually she lost the case as the court ruled the process was in accordance with a state government policy.
“I couldn’t take the case to a higher level due to lack of resources,” says Kharshiing, 55, president of Shillong-based Civil Society Women Organisation. In the matrilineal state, Kharshiing is a women’s rights activist. In her long journey, she has been detained and even chargesheeted quite a few times.
In 2010, she exposed how a large number of candidates were selected fraudulently for teaching jobs. In due course the matter reached the court, which initiated a CBI inquiry. After the report was submitted, the court directed the government to constitute a high-level panel to look into the matter. It led to the termination of services of 200 teachers, but no action has been taken against the wrongdoers.
“I had access to the answer scripts of some candidates, thanks to RTI. I found that the original marks, awarded by the Board, were erased using white fluid. Later, when a section of the aggrieved candidates moved the Gauhati HC, it asked CBI to conduct a probe. The agency too had come across the discrepancies but did not register a case,” says the activist, who is a mother of four.
On November 8, 2013, she was arrested for causing obstruction to an eviction drive, carried out by Meghalaya Urban Development Authority, on the outskirts of Shillong. “I stopped the illegal eviction as forged documents emerged through RTIs I filed. The lands were being taken away from the locals fraudulently and they were falsely evicted. 2,372 acres of land was forged. Two cases were filed against me. They had no demolition order, but cops deliberately made out the case,” she says. She was in jail for eight days before getting a bail. “It was only when I received certified copies did I realise that I was booked for the same cause of action twice. The cases are still pending,” Kharshiing says.
Not just these, she even filed a PIL challenging that the MLAs cannot hold the post as members of autonomous district councils simultaneously. The PIL will be heard on October 9. But faced with opposition from activists like Kharshiing and a section of lawmakers, the state Assembly had on September 24 passed the Prevention of Disqualification (Members of the Legislative Assembly of Meghalaya) (Amendment) Bill, 2015. This will strip the MLAs of the additional post.
“I am now fighting a scam in the Public Distribution System,” she says.