New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday imposed a life ban on three academicians, holding them responsible for “projecting a negative image of judiciary” by mentioning ” corruption in judiciary” in the class 8 NCERT textbook and said it will also take stringent action against social media “mischief mongers” who endorsed the objectionable content to malign the judiciary.
After banning the three academicians from any assignment with govt or govt-aided institutions or projects, a bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi ordered the Centre to identify the “social media mischief mongers“.
NCERT director Dinesh Prasad Saklani and school education secretary Sanjay Kumar tendered an unconditional and unqualified apology to SC for the “major and unpardonable lapse” and promised preventive steps against such lapses in future.
NCERT said the controversial chapter was drafted by Textbook Development Team (TDT) under the chairmanship of Prof Michel Danino and comprised Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar. These three will not be associated with any activity of NCERT in future, it said.
These three “either had no reasonable knowledge about the judiciary or deliberately and knowingly misrepresented facts to project a negative image of Indian judiciary before students of class eight (who are) at an impressionable age”, said the bench.
“We see no reason as to why these kinds of persons should be associated in any manner for the purpose of framing of curriculum or finalisation of textbook for the children, the next generation of this country,” it further said.
