NCERT book row: Supreme Court reverses earlier order banning three academics, removes adverse comments

The Supreme Court on Friday modified its earlier order directing the Centre, states and others to distance themselves from three academics who were involved in drafting the controversial NCERT Class 8 chapter on judicial corruption.

Citing its March 11 order, the Supreme Court said the Union and states can take independent decisions on pooling these academics for academic projects, Live Law reported.

The court left it open to the Centre, states, union territories, public universities and institutions receiving funds from the central or state governments to take an independent decision on the issue without being influenced by its observations made in the March 11 order, news agency PTI reported.

The three academics were Professor Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar.

Full Statement of SC

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi struck down the part of the March 11 order which observed that the three academics “deliberately and knowingly distorted facts” to project a negative image of the Indian judiciary to Class 8 students.

The bench passed the order after hearing a plea from three academicians who explained their stand that no individual has sole say in designing the content and it is a collective process.

The court also noted that his comments were made in the context of the content and not the individuals.

While reiterating that the chapter was “totally undesirable”, the Supreme Court observed, “In view of the explanation given by the appellants, we find it appropriate to amend paragraph 8 of the order and recall the direction issued to the Government of India/State/UTs/Institutions to sequester the 3 appellants from academic activities.”

“We leave it to the Union/State/other authorities to take an independent decision without being influenced by the observations in our above order,” the bench said under Live Law.

What happened earlier

On March 11, the court came down hard on three experts involved in preparing the controversial social science chapter of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for Class 8 and ordered the Center and all states to distance themselves from them.

She directed the Center to form a committee of domain experts within a week to finalize the NCERT legal studies syllabus not only for class 8 but also for higher classes.

The bench was hearing a suo-motu (self-initiated) case titled “In Re: Textbook of Social Science Class 8 (Part 2) published by NCERT and supplementary editions”.

The court was informed that the chapter was drafted by a textbook development team led by Danin and comprised of members Diwakar and Kumar.

On February 26, the apex court imposed a “prohibitive blanket ban” on any further publication, reprint or digital dissemination of the NCERT Class 8 social science textbook, which contained “offensive” content on corruption in the judiciary, saying they had fired and the judiciary was “bleeding”.