GUWAHATI: Meghalaya minister Ampareen Lyngdoh has been given relief in the 2008–09 “white ink case” linked to the education department.
On Thursday, the High Court of Meghalaya quashed all charges against her and two retired government officials, discharging them from the criminal proceedings.
The case pertained to alleged manipulation and tampering of score sheets, as well as interference in the selection of assistant teachers in lower primary schools. Lyngdoh was serving as the education minister at the time.
Speaking to the media with tears in her eyes, she said, “I had told my mother I did not do it. We are a family that upholds justice.”
In 2011, a police case was registered against her under Section 408 of the Indian Penal Code, following a complaint by an individual who accused her and the two officials of conspiring to manipulate the score sheets.
The High Court in 2017 transferred the case from the Meghalaya Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI subsequently filed a chargesheet in 2020.
According to the charges, white ink was allegedly used to erase marks in the original score sheets, replacing them with higher or lower marks to favour certain candidates and exclude others.
It was also alleged that Lyngdoh, using her influence as minister, supplied slips to officials preparing the tabulation sheets, instructing them to alter marks.
However, the single-judge bench of Chief Justice IP Mukerjee observed that the slips produced as evidence could not, by themselves, indicate any specific direction to alter marks, and that the originals were not produced as evidence.
“No document showing interpolation or any application of white ink for erasing the marks are on record… There is no further evidence to link those slips with the charge of manipulation of results,” the court order stated.
The order further added, “…the prosecution has failed to establish even a prima facie case from where a reasonable suspicion may arise in the prosecutor or the court of interpolation of the score sheets by the accused or any of them. The case or charges against each of them falls to the ground.”