LHC stays PTBB from publication of 41 textbooks

Yesterday, Lahore High Court has stopped the Punjab Text Book Board (PTBB) from publishing, printing as well as from script development of 41 textbooks for class 1 to 10.

The Chief Justice of Lahore High Court Ijaz ul Ahsan passed these orders during the hearing of the case filed by the Ali Brothers as well as by other publishers.

During the hearing of this case, Managing Director PTBB Nawazish Ali appeared before the court and required time for submitting the manuscript record of textbooks, their final approval and agreements along with the publishers in response to the previous orders of the court.

At this, the court shows the anger on failure to submit the record in spite of clear directions.

LHC has stopped the board from publishing, printing and manuscript development of 41 textbooks for class I to X sought the record till 1^st December 2015.

The requesters through their application submitted that the board was not following the planned procedure for printing as well as for publishing the textbooks and 41 textbooks for class I to X had been sent for publishing without any final approval from Manuscript Review Committee.

He moreover said that it was the reason that a wrong map was got published in the geography book of 8^th class as well as Seraikistan & Hazara were showed as new provinces of Pakistan in the book.

He said that if those mistakes were not corrected in the textbooks then these mistakes will affect the children in a negative way.

It is also important to mention here that on last hearing, MD PTBB Nawazish Ali guaranteed the court that the approved process was being followed in publishing and in the printing of textbooks. To which, the court had asked him to submit the manuscript record of textbooks, their final approval and their agreements along with the publishers.