Calcutta, July 22: Calcutta High Court today “primarily” upheld the process adopted by West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education in awarding the contract to publish Class XI textbooks and vacated an injunction it had imposed earlier.

Justice Sanjib Banerjee said the HS council’s move to reopen the tenders at the intervention of the state education department “was bad in law” and as the case was “based on reopening of the tender”, the “interim injunction is vacated”.

The process of publishing of textbooks got mired in a legal tangle after Calcutta-based publication house Punascha moved a writ petition alleging that the council had wrongly allowed Hyderabad-based Orient Blackswan to print Class XI textbooks of six subjects when Punascha had offered more royalty.

Today’s order is not the final but will ensure that textbooks reach over 8 lakh affected students.

Punascha said Orient Blackswan was awarded the tender even after offering a lesser royalty than other bidders.

Appearing for the council, advocate-general Bimal Chatterjee told the court that Punascha had been facing a criminal case for printing books illegally and that’s why its bid was not considered during the first round of tendering.

He said after some allegations of anomalies over the tender process surfaced, the tenders were reopened at the intervention of the state education department. Then Punascha got the contract to publish textbooks of two subjects. After this, the Calcutta-based publisher moved high court.

After going through the documents today, Justice Banerjee vacated his interim injunction and allowed the HS council to proceed with the process it had started in the first round of tendering.

“Primarily, this court holds that the way the state education department had intervened in the act of the council and forced it to reopen the tender was bad in law. As the case was based on reopening of the tender, which is bad in law, the interim injunction is vacated,” Justice Banerjee said.