NCERT Textbook Row : Centre Informs Supreme Court Of Expert Committee Members Reviewing Chapter On Judiciary

Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta informed the Supreme Court that Senior Advocate and former Attorney General for India KK Venugopal, former Supreme Court judge Justice Indu Malhotra, and National Judicial Academy Director and former Supreme Court judge Justice Aniruddha Bose, will be the members of the Expert Committee proposed to be constituted by the Central Government to review the NCERT's controversial chapter on judicial corruption.

SG Mehta made this statement before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi during the hearing of another petition seeking the removal of certain other observations regarding a Supreme Court judgment from the old social science textbook of NCERT.

"We have appointed a committee, as a jurist we requested and he has accepted - Mr. Venugopal. He will be a member of the committee in drafting the chapter.  Justice Indu Malhotra would be the judge. We have requested Justice Aniruddha Bose, as Judicial Director, to be kind enough to associate, and there will be one Vice Chancellor," SG Mehta said.

Last month, NCERT's proposed book for Class 8 social science created a controversy over a chapter on 'corruption in the judiciary'. The Supreme Court took a suo motu case over the chapter, and directed the ban of the book. The NCERT later issued a public apology for printing the chapter and withdrew the same.

Last week, the Court was unhappy to note that the NCERT was proposing to introduce the chapter in the coming academic session after rewriting it. The Court directed that the rewritten chapter should not be incorporated in the syllabus without being reviewed by an expert committee to be constituted by the Central Government. 

The Court directed that the expert committee should preferably include a former senior Judge, an eminent academician, and a renowned practitioner in law. The Court also barred the three academics, who were involved in writing the chapter, from associating with other academic projects of public institutions.

Today's PIL was filed with respect to a remark in the old Class 8 social science textbook that “Recent judgments tend to view the slum dweller as an encroacher in the city.”

The Court refused to intervene in the matter, saying that it was only a view point about a judgment. The Chief Justice said that everyone has the right to have a view point about a judgment of the Court. The Court also noted that the issue has become infructuous as the said text book is anyway being replaced by a new book. The petition was accordingly disposed of.

Case Title: Dr Pankaj Pushkar v. Union of India and Anr., Diary No.13060/2026