Bhubaneswar, July 11: In a major development, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Saturday ordered a Crime Branch investigation into the school textbook error matter.

Taking serious notes of the errors found in the textbooks for the Classes I to VIII, the Chief Minister ordered a criminal investigation into the entire textbook preparation and publication process by the State Crime Branch.

According to a CMO release, the CM has directed the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) Director to lodge and FIR with the Crime Branch SP, thereby paving the way for a formal criminal probe into the alleged irregularities.

Earlier, Chief Minister Majhi constituted a three-member high-level committee under the chairmanship of Development Commissioner DK Singh to ascertain the reasons behind the errors in the textbooks. Based on the committee’s findings, the then SCERT Director Manoj Padhi and three Assistant Directors - Pralipta Mishra, Dilip Kumar Sahu and Bharati Tudu - were placed under suspension.

Padhi is currently serving as the Special Secretary in the School and Mass Education Department.

In addition, the Government initiated department disciplinary proceedings against six other Assistant Directors for their alleged role in the lapses.

For the context, textbooks prepared by the SCERT for Classes I to VIII have been found to contain nearly 1,678 identified errors. The highest number, 705, was found in the Class VIII textbooks, besides several significant mistakes in English and Mathematics.

Among the blunders, a photograph of the Karnataka Assembly was featured as that of the Odisha Legislative Assembly while Odisha’s Niyamgiri Hills were shown as being in Jharkhand and Ganjam district was referred to as Brahmapur district.