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

The Supreme Court on Friday modified its earlier order directing the Centre, states, and others to disassociate from three academics involved in preparing the controversial NCERT Class 8 chapter on corruption in the judiciary.

Recalling its 11 March order, the Supreme Court said that the Union and the states may take an independent decision on associating these academics for academic projects, Live Law reported.

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

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

SC's full statement

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi expunged the part of the 11 March order that had recorded that the three academics had "deliberately and knowingly misrepresented the facts" in order to project a negative image of the Indian judiciary to the students of Class 8.

The bench passed the order while hearing a plea moved by the three academics who explained their stand, saying no individual had the sole say in the drafting of the content and it was a collective process.

The court also observed that its comments were made in the context of the contents and not the individuals.

While reiterating that the chapter was "wholly undesirable", the Supreme Court observed, “Owing to the explanation given by the applicants, we deem it appropriate to modify para 8 of the order and recall the direction given to the Government of India/State/UT/Institutions to disassociate the 3 applicants from the academic activities.”

“We leave it to Union/State/other authorities to take an independent decision without being influenced by the observations made in our above-stated order,” the court said, as per Live Law.

What happened earlier

On 11 March, acting tough against the three experts involved in the drafting of the controversial chapter in the National Council of Educational Research and Training's (NCERT) social science book for Class 8, the court had directed the Centre and all states to disassociate from them.

It had directed the Centre to form a committee of domain experts within a week for the purpose of finalising the curriculum of the NCERT's legal studies for not only Class 8 but also higher classes.

The bench was hearing a suo-motu (initiated on its own) case titled "In Re: Social Science textbook for Grade-8 (part-2) published by NCERT and ancillary issues".

The court was informed that the chapter was drafted by the textbook development team under Danino's chairmanship and consisted of members Diwakar and Kumar.

On 26 February, the apex court imposed a "blanket ban" on any further publication, reprinting or digital dissemination of the NCERT's Class-8 social science textbook that contained the "offending" contents on corruption in the judiciary, saying they have fired a gunshot and the judiciary is "bleeding".

(With inputs from PTI)