HS council book plan in court

Calcutta, July 17: The West Bengal Council for Higher Secondary Education today placed a proposal before Calcutta High Court for settling the impasse over printing of Class XI textbooks requesting for status quo for this year.

Justice Sanjib Banerjee after hearing out the proposal directed the council’s lawyer, advocate-general Bimal Chatterjee, to hold meeting with the representatives of both the publishing houses — Orient Blackswan and Punascha — and inform the court about the outcome tomorrow.

The advocate-general today accepted that justice had not been done to Punascha, the publisher that moved court citing a discrepancy in the tender process of the HS council.

According to the council’s proposal, Orient Blackswan should be allowed to publish textbooks on six subjects this year and Punascha should print books on two other subjects.

However, for the next two years, Punascha would be allowed to publish textbooks for six subjects and text books for the two other subjects would be printed by other publishers, according to the council’s proposal.

“Advocate-general will hold a discussion on the council’s proposal with the two publishing houses and inform the court about the outcome of the discussion by tomorrow,” the judge said.

Punascha, a city-based publishing house had moved the case in the high court challenging the legality of the tender process adopted by the council for printing this year’s Class XI books.

The petitioner alleged that even though it had agreed to pay a royalty of 35 per cent, the council had awarded tender to Hyderabad-based Orient Blackswan to print the textbooks of six subject against a payment of only 26 per cent royalty. The council had asked Punascha to publish textbooks only of two subjects.

In response to the petition, Justice Banerjee had issued an interim order restraining the council from proceeding with the tender process till further order of the court.

As a result, nearly 8 lakh students of Class XI this academic year have landed in trouble

When the matter came up for hearing before the court today, the advocate-general informed the judge that his client had chalked out a formula for resolving the stalemate