Bhubaneswar: The Crime Branch on Tuesday arrested former SCERT Director Manoj Padhi in connection with irregularities in the preparation and publication of school textbooks for classes I to VIII.
He has been sent to jail after the JMFC court in Cuttack rejected his bail application.
Padhi was earlier detained by the investigating agency. Following questioning and collection of evidence, the Crime Branch team formally arrested him.The probe was launched on Monday after the Crime Branch registered a case into the alleged irregularities in preparation, approval and publication of school textbooks across the state.
The case has been registered under sections 316(5), 201, 3(5) and 61(2) of the BNS on the basis of a complaint filed by SCERT Director Madhusmita Sahu. DSP Narendra Kumar Behera is heading the investigation as the IO under the supervision of the Crime Branch SP.
According to the Crime Branch, Padhi, an OAS (SS) officer, during his tenure as the Director of TE and SCERT was entrusted with the overall supervision, coordination, monitoring and approval of the textbook development process under the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020.
“He dishonestly failed to discharge the official duties entrusted to him and knowingly approved and forwarded print-ready manuscripts for publication without ensuring verification of their factual, scientific, geographical, translation and pictorial contents amounting to criminal negligence,” informed the Crime Branch.
The agency claimed that these alleged acts of omission led to the publication and distribution of textbooks containing numerous errors, resulting in an estimated wrongful loss of around Rs 175 crore to the state exchequer and causing significant injury to public interest.
The case stems from a state government report that flagged massive errors in textbooks. Last month, the government had set up a three-member committee headed by Development Commissioner DK Singh after 1,678 factual, typographical and printing errors were detected in textbooks across subjects.
Based on the committee’s findings, the state government had suspended Manoj Padhi along with three assistant directors from SCERT. The Crime Branch is now investigating the role of officials involved in the approval and printing process of the textbooks.
