Supreme Court Closes Suo Motu Case Over NCERT Textbook Chapter On 'Corruption In Judiciary'
The Supreme Court on Tuesday closed the suo motu proceedings concerning a controversial chapter on “Corruption in Judiciary” that had appeared in an NCERT Class 8 Social Science textbook, after the chapter was subsequently withdrawn.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana passed the order noting that the chapter has been replaced based on the revisions suggested by an expert panel constituted by the Centre. Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta informed that the textbooks with the new chapter are in circulation.
The Court had earlier taken strong objections to the previous chapter, and had ordered a ban on the textbooks containing the same. Contempt notices were also issued to the NCERT and Ministry officials who approved the chapter.
Today, the Court also clarified the scope of an earlier order concerning the three academics, stating that its previous order had merely recorded a submission made by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that the curriculum had not been shared with the committee as per the protocol and therefore was not a collective decision. The Bench clarified that it had not itself made any observation that the curriculum was not a collective decision. The clarification was made considering an application filed by one of the academics, represented by Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, who submitted that the observations, if misconstrued as a judicial finding, will cause prejudice to them.
Senior Advocates Gopal Sankaranarayanan and J Sai Deepak, representing the other two academics, backed the application.
Earlier, the Court had passed an order restricting the three academics involved in the preparation of the chapter from participating in academic projects of Central or State universities and public educational institutions. This direction blacklisting the academics was subsequently recalled.
Case Title: In Re : Social Science Textbook for Grade-8(Part 2) published by NCERT and ancillary issues | SMW (C) 1/2026