Centre proposes panel with ex AG, former judges to review controversial chapter in NCERT book, SC told

The top court refused to entertain the petition, observing that the judiciary should not be oversensitive about a healthy criticism.

New Delhi: The Centre on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it has proposed constituting an expert committee to review class 8 NCERT book controversial chapter on judicial corruption.

The panel will comprise senior advocate and former Attorney General K K Venugopal, former Supreme Court judge Justice Indu Malhotra, and National Judicial Academy Director and former Supreme Court judge Justice Aniruddha Bose.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta made the submissions before a bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi. 

The bench was hearing a plea by Dr Pankaj Pushkar 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, we have requested the former AG, Venugopal and he has accepted,'' Mehta said.

He added that the former AG will be a member of the committee in drafting the chapter and Justice Indu Malhotra will be the judge. 

"We have requested Justice Bose to be kind enough to associate with this committee, and there will be a vice chancellor (who will be part of the panel)," he said.

The court had earlier directed the Union government to constitute a committee of domain experts to finalise the curriculum related to legal studies in NCERT textbooks.

NCERT’s proposed Class VIII social science textbook kicked off a row over a chapter dealing with corruption in the judiciary.

The court took a suo motu cognizance of the matter, and banned the book.

On March 11, the court said that it was worried by the stand of NCERT that the controversial chapter, which contained "offending" content on corruption in the judiciary, in Class 8 social sciences book has been "rewritten" and that the revised chapter will be incorporated in the textbooks for the 2026-27 academic year.