Supreme Court Orders Blacklisting Of Three NCERT Experts Over 'Corruption In Judiciary' Chapter In Class 8 Textbook

The Supreme Court today ordered the blacklisting of three experts involved in drafting a controversial chapter on corruption in the judiciary for a Class 8 NCERT textbook.

A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi described the NCERT director's response as "disturbing" after it emerged the chapter had been rewritten without disclosing details of the new experts or approval processes.

The court directed the Union government and states not to associate with Professor Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar, who were involved in drafting the earlier controversial chapter.

An affidavit by NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani stated that visiting professor Michel Danino had supervised the drafting of the chapter, whilst educator Suparna Diwakar and legal researcher Alok Prasanna Kumar were also involved in the process.

The bench directed the Union, all states and all institutions receiving state funds to disassociate them from rendering any service which would mean payment from public funds.

The court observed it had "no reason to doubt that Professor Michel Danino along with Ms Diwakar and Mr Alok Prasanna Kumar either does not have reasonable knowledge about Indian judiciary or they deliberately, knowingly misrepresented the facts in order to project a negative image of the Indian judiciary before students of class 8 who are at an impressionable age. "

However, the three individuals can approach the Supreme Court for modification of this order, the court added.

The controversy centres on Chapter 4 of the textbook titled "Exploring Society: India and Beyond", which contained a section on "corruption in the judiciary" as part of a broader discussion on challenges facing the judicial system.

The Supreme Court on 26 February imposed a 'complete blanket ban' on the Class 8 NCERT book with a chapter on corruption in the judiciary and ordered that all copies, physical and digital, be seized.

The court directed the Centre to form an expert committee comprising a retired judge, an eminent academician and a renowned lawyer to review the rewritten chapter.

The reworked chapter should not be published unless approved by the expert committee, the bench ordered.

NCERT has tendered an unconditional apology over the Class 8 chapter on the judiciary, stating in a post that "the Director and Members of NCERT hereby tender an unconditional and unqualified apology for the said Chapter IV. The entire book has been withdrawn and is not available. "

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