The Odisha government on Saturday ordered a Crime Branch investigation into the preparation and publication of the error-ridden school textbooks that triggered state-wide outrage.
Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi directed the Director of Teacher Education and State Council of Educational Research and Training (TE and SCERT) to lodge a written complaint with the Crime Branch of police for further investigation.
The move comes two weeks after the government suspended four officials of the directorate of TE and SCERT, including the then director, and initiated disciplinary proceedings against six others over the textbook fiasco.
As many as 55 textbooks introduced for 5.23 million students from Class I to VIII for the 2026-27 academic session were found carrying 1,678 spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, basic factual, historical and geographical blunders after they were distributed to students.
Taking serious note of the findings of a high-level probe headed by D K Singh, development commissioner and subsequent media reports, Majhi directed that a crime branch probe be initiated into the entire process involving the preparation, review and publication of the textbooks.
According to a statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), the Chief Minister has specifically instructed the director of TE and SCERT to lodge a First Information Report (FIR) with the Superintendent of Police of the Crime Branch, paving the way for a detailed investigation to find out criminal liability.
Earlier, the high-level probe panel had highlighted serious lapses in content preparation, fact-checking, editorial scrutiny and quality control during the drafting, review and printing stages of the books.
Based on the committee’s findings, four officials, including former director of TE and SCERT Manoj Padhi, three Assistant directors – Pralipta Mishra, Dilip Kumar Sahu and Bharati Tudu were placed under suspension. Disciplinary proceedings were also ordered against six assistant directors – Bandita Pattnaik, Manas Ranjan Rout, Manoranjan Mahapatra, Prashant Kumar Sahu, Manas Kumar Nayak and Sudarshan Santara.
The controversy erupted after numerous factual, historical and geographical errors were discovered in the newly published textbooks prepared by the directorate of TE and SCERT under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 curriculum reforms.
From portraying Sitabinji cave in Keonjhar district as the birthplace of Lord Ram’s twin sons – Luv and Kush and claiming that infertile women can regain fertility by circumambulating the cave, locating the Niyamgiri Hills in Jharkhand to misidentifying the Hampi Stone Chariot as the Konark Sun Temple and Karnataka’s Assembly building as Odisha’s, the blunders exposed deep failures in curriculum development and academic scrutiny.
The unprecedented mistakes triggered widespread outrage among teachers, educationists, parents and students, raising serious concerns over the quality of the state’s textbook development process.
The Opposition accused the BJP government of compromising educational standards despite claiming to usher in reforms under the NEP. The government, however, maintained that it acted immediately after the errors came to light by constituting a high-level inquiry and fixing accountability.
“The probe is expected to examine whether negligence, procedural violations or any other criminal misconduct led to the publication of textbooks containing such extensive errors, while also identifying the responsibility of officials and others involved at different stages of content development, vetting and printing,” officials said.
