Calcutta High Court on Thursday asked the district primary school council (DPSC) of North Dinajpur to file a report stating the steps it had taken after the alleged theft of school textbooks worth ₹3.5 crore from its godown in Islampur in 2022.

The DPSC will have to file the report within three weeks, after which the court will hear the case again.

The division bench of Chief Justice T. S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya issued the order on a public interest litigation filed by the parents of some primary school students in Islampur and its surroundings.

Over two lakh textbooks, which were supposed to be distributed among students of primary classes at state-aided schools, were allegedly stolen from the godown. The PIL alleged that the school education department had not taken significant steps to identify the culprits.

Moving the petition, advocate Debasish Bandyopadhyay informed the court that the books had been stolen from the custody of the sub-inspector of schools (primary) of the Islampur circle.

“After the incident, an FIR was lodged at the Islampur police station on December 2, 2022. The police arrested Ganesh Mandal, the caretaker of the godown, and another person. Both of them got bail,” said Bandyopadhyay.

On December 1, 2022, Subhankar Nandi, the sub-inspector of schools (primary) of the Islampur circle, visited the godown at Hospitalpara to check the stock of textbooks.

He found out that around 2.16 lakh textbooks of Bengali, English, mathematics and science were missing. Later, he filed a police complaint.

State government counsel Amitesh Bannerjee informed the division bench on Thursday that the police had filed chargesheets against the accused.

Subhankar Nandi said: “After the incident, the state education department took the initiative to send additional books to us. The books were distributed among primary school students.”

Additional reporting by our Raiganj correspondent