The Supreme Court Friday recalled its March 11 direction blacklisting three academics, Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar, in connection with the controversy over the inclusion of a chapter on “Corruption in the Judiciary” in the Class 8 Social Science textbook.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi agreed to pleas by the three academics to remove the directions against them.
“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.
“However, in view of the explanation furnished by the applicants, namely the authors, we deem it appropriate to modify paragraph 8 of the order and recall the direction issued to the Government of India, the State Governments, Union Territories, universities, and educational institutions to disassociate themselves from the applicants in academic activities,” the bench added.
The bench said the Centre and state governments and other authorities will be free to take their own decisions on associating with them, independent of its observations.
“In this regard, we leave it open to the Union of India, the State Governments, and other competent authorities to take an independent decision without being influenced by the observations made in paragraph 8 of the aforesaid order,” the bench said.
Previous order on NCERT book row
The March 11 order had said “at the outset, we have no reason to doubt that Prof. Michel Danino and his associates, Ms. Suparna Diwakar and Mr. Alok Prasanna Kumar, do not have reasonable informed knowledge about the Indian Judiciary and/or they deliberately and knowingly have misrepresented the facts in order to project a negative image of the Indian Judiciary to students of Class 8, who are at an impressionable age”.
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“We see no reason as to why these persons should continue to be associated, in any manner whatsoever, with the preparation of the curricula or the finalisation of textbooks for our future generations. Consequently, we direct the Government of India, the State Governments, the Union Territories, as well as all public universities and institutions receiving funds from the Central or State Governments, to disassociate from these three members of the TDT forthwith.”
The court, however, gave them the liberty to approach the court with the request to modify the order, along with their explanations.
On Friday, the bench also recalled the first line of Paragraph 8 of its order, which said they had deliberately and knowingly misinterpreted the facts. “It is further clarified that the opening line of paragraph 8 of the order, to the effect that the three applicants had deliberately or knowingly misrepresented facts, is also recalled in light of the explanation tendered by them,” the court said in the order.
The Supreme Court had taken suo motu cognisance of the matter following a report in The Indian Express on February 24, and sought responses from NCERT and the Centre.
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In response, NCERT Director Prakash Saklani filed an affidavit, saying the chapter “was drafted by the Textbook Development Team (TDT) under the chairmanship of Prof Michel Danino, consisting of…Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar”.
The top court subsequently imposed a blanket ban on production and distribution of the book and directed the government to constitute such a Committee of domain experts, preferably including a former senior Judge, an eminent academician, and a renowned practitioner in law to examine the issue. Accordingly, the centre set up a three-member committee comprising Justice Indu Malhotra (retd), Senior Advocate K K Venugopal, and Prakash Singh, Vice Chancellor of HNB Garhwal University.
On Friday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the government would not like to associate itself with the three experts. “We would not like to be associated with any such members who drafted that Class 8 chapter,” said Mehta.
The court said it was up to the government what to do.
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The SG added that he had also come across one such instance in the Class 11 textbook. “These are cartoons … But for the impressionable age group…this is not a place for cartoons,” he said.
The Supreme Court said that it can be looked into by the committee headed by Justice Malhotra.
