A former Chief Educational Officer (CEO) of Coimbatore was among the seven Government officials against whom a case has been registered in connection with more than 350 tonnes of Samacheer textbooks, meant for distribution to Government and aided schools, went missing in 2011-12.
The City Crime Branch had registered a case against Rajendran, who was the CEO of Coimbatore during that period and has since been suspended, Saravana Kumar, Arul Jothi, Sethuraman, and Prince Solomon, all of whom were School Education Department officials working in the office of CEO, Lourde Xavier, Headmaster of a Government school, and Karthikeyan, who was working in the Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation.
The matter surfaced recently when Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Limited had sought the books for recycling. Since the books never came from Coimbatore even while other districts had despatched their stocks, the state-run firm alerted the School Education Department.
As these officials were unable to properly account for the textbooks, Chief Educational Officer A. Gnanagowri filed a police complaint.
The CCB registered a case and invoked Section 409 (Criminal breach of trust by public servant) of the Indian Penal Code. Further investigations are on.
