NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday strongly reprimanded the NCERT over its now-withdrawn chapter in the newly introduced Class 8 textbook, which had been added to the syllabus days ago and outlined “corruption” and “backlogs” in the judiciary. Calling it a “deep-rooted conspiracy,” the CJI issued a show-cause notice to the NCERT director and pushed for action, seeking a “deeper probe” into the matter.Amid the controversy surrounding the top court’s remarks, it also directed the seizure of physical and digital copies of the NCERT textbook in circulation that contained the chapter on judicial “corruption.”
Here are the key observations made by the Supreme Court:
- “They have fired the gun and the judiciary is bleeding today. Today, anybody can say anything. At times, there is a mounting attack on us, and we are aware of it. The material is available online, on the internet, and even in stores.”
- “This is a very calculated move — the entire teaching will be dictated. When you look at how the Indian judiciary is portrayed as corrupt, it becomes evident what message is being sent. The entire teaching community will first be instructed that this is what they have to teach.”
- “In reality, not a single section of society has been left untouched. It is a deep-rooted, well-planned, and orchestrated conspiracy.” the CJI said.
- “There is not a single word of apology in NCERT’s communication, and instead, they have justified it.”
- “It is my duty to find out who is responsible; heads must roll,” said CJI Surya Kant.
- “We would like to have deeper probe,” said the Supreme Court.
- “It seems there is a calculated move to undermine institution and demean dignity of judiciary.”
- “If allowed to go unchecked, this will erode people’s faith in judiciary.”
- “Such misconduct, having everlasting impact on judiciary, would fall within definition of criminal contempt.”
- The top court further ordered a blanket ban on further publication of NCERT book, having “offending chapter” on judiciary in physical and digital form. The court directed Centre, state authorities to immediately comply with its directions.
The court will hear suo motu case on this matter on March 11.This follows the introduction of a new NCERT social science textbook for Class 8, which highlighted key challenges facing the country’s judicial system, including corruption, a heavy backlog of cases, and an insufficient number of judges. The revised chapter, titled ‘The Role of the Judiciary in Our Society’, goes beyond explaining the structure of courts and access to justice, addressing systemic issues that affect the functioning of the judiciary. Previous editions primarily focused on the organisation and role of courts.One section of the new textbook discusses corruption within the judicial system and its impact on access to justice, particularly for economically disadvantaged groups. “People do experience corruption at various levels of the judiciary. For the poor and the disadvantaged, this can worsen the issue of access to justice. Hence, efforts are constantly being made at the State and Union levels to build faith and increase transparency in the judicial system, including through the use of technology, and to take swift and decisive action against instances of corruption wherever they may arise,” the chapter states.The textbook also provides data on the scale of pending cases across courts, estimating around 81,000 cases in the Supreme Court, about 62.40 lakh in high courts, and approximately 4.70 crore in district and subordinate courts.
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