'People Have Right To Criticise Our Judgments': Supreme Court On Plea Against Old NCERT Chapter On Verdicts About Slums

The Supreme Court today refused to entertain a petition which sought to remove a remark against judgments from NCERT's old Social Science textbook for Class 8, observing that expressing a viewpoint about a verdict was not wrong.

A bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Pancholi was hearing a petition which took objection to the remark “recent judgments tend to view the slum dweller as an encroacher in the city” in the old Class 8 social science text book.

"It's a viewpoint about a judgment. That's a healthy criticism. Why the judiciary should be so oversensitive about that? This part of the book points out what is the structure of the judiciary, how they work, what they have done, some good has also been highlighted. Then they say however there are also Court judgments that people believe work against the best interests of common persons...This is a viewpoint about a judgment, people have a right to criticize our judgments", said the CJI.

During the hearing, the petitioner's counsel raised an apprehension about the opinion that a slum-dweller may form about the judiciary upon reading the impugned excerpt (which claimed that recent Court judgments tended to view slum dwellers as encroachers).

In response, the CJI underlined that perceptions about a Court judgment can be right or wrong. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta added, "perception which an uninformed person would gather from the judgment can never be a concern of the judiciary".

The SG further informed the Court about composition of the Expert Committee proposed to be constituted by the Union to review the controversial NCERT textbook chapter on judicial corruption.

Ultimately, the petition was disposed of as infructuous, since the textbook was only for the 2015-16 year.

To recap, the petitioner, a former member of NCERT, filed the present petition under Article 32 of the Constitution in the wake of the controversy surrounding NCERT's recent Class 8 Social Science textbook which contained a chapter with an excerpt on “Corruption in Judiciary” (since withdrawn).

The petition impugned NCERT's textbook titled Social and Political Life – III (2015-2016 edition) prescribed for Class 8 students. The excerpt challenged by the petitioner stated, “Recent judgments tend to view the slum dweller as an encroacher in the city.”

Reportedly, it was mentioned at pg 62 of the textbook, under the chapter discussing role of the judiciary and right to livelihood. According to the petitioner, the same selectively presented judicial reasoning in a manner “divorced from its constitutional, statutory and factual framework”.

The reliefs sought were as follows:

- Examination of the pedagogical and constitutional propriety of the impugned content in the NCERT textbook;

- Directions to the Union and NCERT for production of records on drafting, review, approval and publication of the impugned chapter;

- Directions for prompt withdrawal, correction and revisiting of any constitutionally deficient, decontextualized or institutionally improper content capable of undermining the dignity of the judiciary;

- Orders in exercise of Article 129 to prevent any act or publication which may scandalize or tend to scandalize or interfere with administration of justice;

- Directions to ensure that future pedagogical and curricular material published by the Union is subjected to constitutionally compliant review mechanisms.

Case Title: PANKAJ PUSHKAR Versus UNION OF INDIA AND ANR., W.P.(C) No. 306/2026