PESHAWAR, June 4: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday directed the provincial government to constitute a high-profile committee of academicians for revamping the system of textbook printing to ensure timely provision of error-free books to students.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Roohul Amin disposed of a writ petition filed by senior advocate Mohammad Essa Khan challenging shortage of textbooks in the market and errors in numerous books.

In the order, the bench observed that its Nov 6, 2012 order about establishment of own printing presses by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board and the present one should be sent to the provincial chief minister for necessary action from two to three months.

It observed that as the newly-elected government had assumed office and had already mentioned that improvement of the education system was on top of their agenda, the orders should be sent to it because the matter related to a very sensitive issue as future of present and coming generations was involved.

The bench added that it was necessary that students should get better education, while error-free textbooks reached them at the start of new academic year.

It issued directions for the establishment of a high-profile committee to review the system of the preparation and the printing of textbooks and formulation of terms of reference for the committee after due consideration by the cabinet to ensure provision of free-free textbooks to students many days before the start of academic year.

The court also directed the government to legislate for punishing all those responsible for errors in textbooks and recovering the loss to the kitty for errors and the subsequent delay in the printing of books.

When asked about implementation of the bench’s earlier order on the matter, Abdul Lateef Afridi, lawyer for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board, said participants of a recent meeting estimated that billions of rupees would be spent ion on setting up printing presses by the board.

He said around at least 100 printing machines were required to be required and land purchased for establishing the presses.

He said the board had annually been printing around 40 million books for which contact had been assigned to 67 printing presses.

He said at least 4,000 employees were working with these printers and if the board set up its own machines then they would be rendered jobless.

The chief justice observed that as these workers were trained staff, they could be employed by the board if they installed own machines.

He observed that officials were involved in receiving kick backs for awarding printing contracts to printers and therefore, they had been discouraging setting up of own printing machines. Petitioner Essa Khan produced several books and pointed out errors in them.

According to him, in the mathematics book for class 7 an entire multiplication table was erroneous and was printed for years 2012 and 2013. Similar mistakes are also present in other books.

He requested the bench not to dispose of the petition, saying the government would take the matter lightly in case of the petition’s disposal. The bench directed the Chief Minister’s Secretariat or principal secretary to the chief minister to submit report to the registrar of the court after the cabinet’s approval and formulation of the proper mechanism in this respect.