A plea was filed against the CBSE circular which allegedly forced schools to prescribe the text books which are printed by the printers enrolled with the NCERT only. Now High Court is seeking the response on the plea from center and CBSE.
A notice was issued by Justice A.K. Pathak to the Ministy of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) which sough independent replies from both the bodies against the plea filed by the Independent Schools Federation of India.
According to the plea filed certain printers in the panel of NCERT has conspired to create their monopoly in the matter of printing the books.
This petition was filed by the advocate Ravi Prakash Gupta against the circular issued by CBSE on April 1, which directed schools to prescribe the books of those publishers which were in the panel of NCERT.
"Giving sole responsibility to NCERT textbooks for its prescriptions in schools, will not only monopolize textbook preparation in the country but shall also jeopardize the innovation associated in the making of textbooks. This is totally against Rule 15(1) (d) of Affiliation Bye-laws as per which the schools will follow the text books published by NCERT for the Middle Classes as far as practical," it said.
It also said that books which are available in market are from renowned writer who have vast experience in their respective fields. These writers are not only better but far experienced than those recruited by the NCERT for composing the textbooks.