The Lahore High Court on Monday again issued notices to respondents on a petition challenging the exclusion of the Punjab Textbook Board from participating in bids for developing school syllabus.
Justice Shujaat Ali Khan adjourned the hearing till June 17 after he was told that service on earlier notice could not be completed.
The petition has been filed by Mohammed Akhtar Sherani, the general secretary of Punjab Textbook Board Employees Welfare Society.
Sherani has challenged an order of Caretaker Chief Minister Najam Sethi. Sethi is one of the respondents as the central chairman of Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers Association.
Among other respondents are the chief secretary, the Punjab Curriculum Authority, the Punjab Textbook Board and the School Education Department secretary.
The Punjab Textbook Board , prior to the passage of the 18th Amendment, would invite writers to send in manuscripts for textbooks in an open competition, select the best scripts and then publish the textbooks itself or through private publishers.
After the devolution of education to the provinces, the Punjab government passed the Punjab Curriculum Authority Act of 2012, curtailing the PTB’s role. But the PTB continued to compete in the development of textbooks, said petitioner’s counsel Hafiz Tariq Nasim.
He said that Sethi, as chairman of the Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers Association, made a representation to the chief minister on June 12, 2012, asking that the PTB be refrained from developing manuscripts for the books.
The chief minister took no action and the Punjab Curriculum Authority published an advertisement on April 10, 2013, inviting bids from private persons and agencies including the PTB in an on open competition, he said.
The PTB made a bid, but before a decision was made, Sethi was made caretaker chief minister of the Punjab. On April 18, the caretaker chief minister, on an application filed by Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers Association Vice Chairman Saleem Malik, barred the PTB from participating in the bid, the petitioner’s counsel said. The Punjab Curriculum Authority then re-advertised for bids for the textbooks on May 13, barring the PTB from participating.
The petitioner argued that the caretaker chief minister’s decision on the application was illegal and unlawful as it violated a well-settled axiom of law: “No one can be a judge of his own cause.”
The petitioner asked the court to set aside the PCA advertisement of May 13 and restore the April 10 advertisement allowing the PTB to participate in the open competition for the development of textbooks.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 4th, 2013.