High Court relief for Meghalaya Minister in 17-year-old case

The High Court of Meghalaya has quashed all charges against Meghalaya’s Health and Family Welfare Minister, Mazel Ampareen Lyngdoh, and two others in a 17-year-old case.

The three were accused in what came to be known as the “white ink case” or the “education scam in 2008-09, when Ms. Lyngdoh was the Education Minister.

A Congress leader at that time, she is now an MLA of the National People’s Party. 

The other two accused retired as officers in the education department.

“I had told my mother that I was not involved. We are a family that upholds justice,” she said after the court’s order on Thursday (September 4, 2025).

The case refers to alleged manipulation, tampering of score sheets, and interference in the selection of assistant teachers in lower primary schools. In 2011, a police case was registered against Lyngdoh under Section 408 of the Indian Penal Code based on a complaint.

The complainant accused her and the two officials of conspiring to manipulate the score sheets, using white ink to erase the original marks and substituting them with higher or lower marks to accommodate the preferred candidates and remove the undesired ones.

In 2017, the high court transferred the case from the Meghalaya police to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The central agency filed the chargesheet in 2020.

Thursday’s (September 4, 2025) order by the single-judge Bench of Chief Justice I.P. Mukerji, read: “…The said slips, which had been produced as evidence, could not by themselves suggest any specific direction for alteration of marks. The originals have not been produced as evidence.

“No document showing interpolation or any application of white ink for erasing the marks is on record…There is no further evidence to link those slips with the charge of manipulation of results,” the order read.

“…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,” the order further read.