'Under pressure from lawyers, judges', university asks student to take down article critical of Supreme Court post NCERT chapter row

The law student refuses to budge, says 'how can the university kowtow to such external pressures?'

A university administration, citing external pressure from members of the legal community, has reportedly requested a law student to take down a Substack article criticising the Supreme Court’s response to a recent NCERT textbook controversy involving a chapter on judicial corruption.

Rishi A Kumar, a law student from a university in Tamil Nadu writing under the pseudonym Arekay, published a follow-up post titled, 'I wrote about judicial corruption and overreach. And they called my university', stating that the university intervention followed complaints from members of the legal community.

According to the student, the administration cited "immense pressure from lawyers and judges" as the reason for the takedown request. "My university decided to cave in and emailed me to take it down immediately. I refused," he wrote.

The move has triggered a fresh debate on academic freedom and the right to dissent.

The original article, 'The Supreme Court of India has no spine', analysed the apex court’s suo motu intervention regarding an NCERT Class 8 Social Science textbook section titled 'Corruption in the judiciary', which discussed challenges facing the Indian legal system, including backlog of cases and judicial integrity.

In February, a Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant took suo motu cognisance of the chapter. The court described the inclusion of the section as a "calculated move" and a "deep-rooted conspiracy" to defame the institution. As part of the proceedings, the court imposed a blanket ban on the production and distribution of the textbook; ordered the seizure of all physical copies from schools and libraries, and directed the government to form an expert committee to redraft the chapter.

Subsequently, on March 11, the court passed another order barring the three experts who had drafted the chapter, Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar, from all work associated with any publicly funded curriculum.

In the article, the student argued that this ban was "unconstitutional" and that the three authors being blacklisted without a hearing was a "denial of due process". In the later post, he said, "I also showed that judicial corruption in India, which the court was so offended by, is a well-documented and a very real problem."

He had also argued about the "broader failure of institutions" and had criticised the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education for "caving in and publicly backing this ban, in complete contravention of their oath to the Constitution".

In the follow-up post, the student said that after his article was widely read, "Judges and advocates of the Supreme Court and High Courts started calling my university, pressuring them to have it taken down."

He posted an email he received from the university asking him to “take down the article immediately” in the “best interest of the university and yourself”.

Objecting to this, he replied to the university saying, "I will not be taking down my article. Not now. Not ever."

He said the article was posted on his personal Substack page and it was written entirely in his personal capacity. "At no point did I mention my status as a student of this university. My opinions are mine alone. Any attempt to conflate them with that of the university is clearly wrong."

He sought to know from the authorities as to "how can the university kowtow to such external pressures?"