Centre Forms Panel To Revise NCERT Class 8 Chapter on Judiciary

New Delhi: The Centre on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it has constituted a committee to review and redraft a Class 8 NCERT textbook chapter dealing with corruption in the judiciary.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant that the panel includes former Supreme Court judges Justice Indu Malhotra and Justice Aniruddha Bose, and former Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, along with an academic representative.

“We have formed the committee to draft the chapter. K.K. Venugopal will be a member of the committee. Justice Indu Malhotra will also be a part. We have also requested Justice Aniruddha Bose from the National Judicial Academy to be there,” he said.

The court was hearing a plea filed by former NCERT member Pankaj Pushkar challenging content in an earlier Class 8 textbook.

The bench declined to entertain the petition, observing that criticism of judicial decisions is part of public discourse.

“It's a viewpoint about a judgment. That's a healthy criticism. Why the judiciary should be so oversensitive about that… people have a right to criticise our judgments,” the CJI observed.

The development follows the court’s March 11 direction to the Centre to set up a panel of experts to review legal studies content in NCERT textbooks across classes.

The court had also asked the Centre and states to dissociate from experts involved in drafting the contentious chapter and to revisit the composition of the National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee. The matter pertains to revisions in curriculum content related to the judiciary, with the panel tasked to finalise updated material.