Calcutta, July 9: The West Bengal Council for Higher Secondary Education’s textbook printing and distribution policy has come under the scanner following a court case in the middle of uncertainty for 8 lakh Class XI students in the Uchcha Madhyamik stream.

One of the publishers moved Calcutta High Court today, accusing the council of adopting an “arbitrary method” in selecting the publisher to print the books.

The trigger behind the controversy is a decision by the council to select private publishers to print text books in eight subjects — English, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit, Nepali, Tamil and Environmental Studies — by replacing Visva-Bharati, the erstwhile publishers.

Punascha, a city-based publishing house that had taken part in the tender process, moved the court.

According to the schedule set by the council — an autonomous body — the students should have got the books by July 10.

“The classes have started in most schools and the students are demanding books…. Now that the matter has reached court, students will not get the books on time,” said the headmaster of a prominent city school.

Council president Muktinath Chatterjee declined comment on the matter as it was “sub judice”.

In its petition, Punascha has mentioned that Orient Blackswan, a Hyderabad-based publishing house, was given the contract. Orient Blackswan had offered to pay a 26 per cent royalty on the minimum retail price of the books while Punascha had promised a 35 per cent royalty, the petition said.

Education department officials agreed that higher royalty should not be the sole yardstick as printing textbooks requires stress on quality also. But they pointed out that the tender process was opaque, which resulted in the legal tangle.

“The council did the right thing by outsourcing printing to private publishers…. But ideally they should have ended the process by framing the syllabus and let all the publishers take part in the process of printing books. The quality of the textbooks would have determined their acceptance in the market,” said an official.

The ICSE Council follows such a process, which gives schools and students the liberty to pick up the best textbooks from the market. “We publish only the English textbook to maintain the standard,” said a source.

The problems over printing of textbooks for the students of the Higher Secondary Council have prompted the authorities to take a fresh look at its textbook policy.

“We may follow the ISC model next year. But this year, we need to find a solution,” said a senior higher education department official. Although the council is autonomous, the government can set policy guidelines.

Resolving this year’s crisis, however, is going to be easier said than done, said an insider in the textbook printing business, holding the council responsible for the mess. If the case takes time, a contingency plan of uploading the texts on the Internet is being considered, a source said.

“Orient Blackswan started printing the books even before the formal tender process started on April 28. This means they had got the assurance of selection even before the process started,” said a lawyer representing Punascha.

A senior manager of another publishing house, which was eyeing a share of the Rs 60-crore textbook business pie, said that some publishers had alerted the school education department that Orient Blackswan was printing textbooks even before the council had selected any publishing house.

“The alerts forced the council to float a tender in which six publishing houses took part. The tender process was opaque as the criteria for selection was not clearly spelt out,” said the manager.

After the opening of the tender documents, the authorities gave Orient Blackswan the contract to print textbooks of English, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Nepali and Tamil while Punascha got the contract for Sanskrit and Environment Studies.

Contacted, an official of Orient Blackswan said the publisher did not want to make any statement outside the court as the matter was sub judice.

As more than 90 per cent students buy English and Bengali textbooks, the volume of sales is highest for these two subjects.

Many publishers eye the textbook market as it guarantees high demand. It also helps develop a distribution channel across the state, which the publishers use to push other books.

“We have moved court as we want to know the criteria for Orient Blackswan’s selection. We are also informing the court that the council is forcing us to pay royalty of 26 per cent even though we are willing to pay 35 per cent…. There is something wrong in the process,” said a lawyer representing Punascha.

Justice Sanjib Banerjee of Calcutta High Court has passed an interim order preventing the council from giving effect to the tender process.

The judge fixed the hearing of the case on July 11 as the counsel appearing for the council sought time.

“We don’t know when the issue will be resolved and the students will get their books. We are focusing only on grammar and writing skills as we can’t take up prose or poetry without textbooks,” said the headmaster of a school.