The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to recall its direction blacklisting three academicians – Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar – who wrote the controversial chapter on “Corruption in the Judiciary” in the NCERT Class 8 Social Science textbook.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi also assured the three academicians that it will delete certain observations which attributed malicious intent to them for preparing the content.
“While we reiterate, in no uncertain terms, that the curriculum contained in the Class 8 NCERT textbook was wholly undesirable and unnecessary, remedial steps regarding the insertion of new content relating to the Indian judiciary have already been initiated by the Government of India through the constitution of an expert committee headed by a former judge of this Court,” the bench ordered.
The bench further clarified that observations in the suo moto case initiated by the Court subsequent to the inclusion of the controversial chapter in the textbook were against the controversial “content” and not against any “individual”.
“We knew that the observations were harsh. We knew it affected them. In response to that, we are deleting those portions,” Justice Bagchi said.
The Court clarified that what was concerning was that “corruption” in the said textbook “was highlighted as a unique feature of the judiciary”.
The Court also asked the academicians to apply sobriety when curating academic literature on the judiciary with a sense of respect for the justice delivery system and the constitutional scheme.
The Court said that there should be a balanced approach in pedagogical content on such subjects which was completely missing.
“Access to justice through legal aid, the role of judges in legal services and legal aid were completely ignored”, Justice Bagchi said.
During the hearing, senior Advocates Shyam Divan, Gopal Sankarnarayanan and J Sai Deepak representing the academicians, told the court that they had “zero intent” to malign the judiciary.
After the brief hearing, the Court assured the academicians that it would delete the observations, acknowledging that they were a bit harsh.
Advertisement
