India forms panel to rewrite controversial NCERT judiciary chapter; Supreme Court closes case

New Delhi: The government on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it has constituted a committee to redraft the contentious chapter on judiciary in textbooks of NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training).

The top court's former judges, justices Indu Malhotra and Aniruddha Bose, and former attorney general KK Venugopal are on the panel, it said.

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The information was conveyed by solicitor general Tushar Mehta to a three-member bench comprising CJI Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and VM Pancholi. Recording the submission, the bench disposed of the suo motu case it had registered over the chapter in question.

At the last hearing, the court had strongly disapproved of the stance taken by NCERT director Dinesh Prasad Saklani that a controversial Class 8 social science book containing a section on "corruption in judiciary" has been "rewritten".

A three-member bench headed by CJI Kant had recorded that the NCERT director's written reply in the instant suo motu case was "disturbing".

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The bench at the last hearing had said that it was disturbing because the director's reply neither spelt out details of the "alleged subject experts" who have rewritten the contentious chapter nor of those who approved its inclusion in the revised book.

"Neither the affidavit nor otherwise has apprised the court as to who are the alleged subject experts who have re-written the chapter and who approved its inclusion," the bench had said in its order. "Suffice to say that more complexity shall be created." The bench had ordered that the rewritten chapter shall not be published until experts review it.