On Monday, the Supreme Court of India ordered the Centre to widen the scope of the revision of textbooks on legal studies and judiciary in all classes and not just in Class 8. The case was filed in a suo motu proceeding following an outcry of controversial information in a Social Science textbook that was said to give a false impression of a judiciary.
Bench Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi noted that review process cannot be limited to one class. The court directed that textbooks in more than one grade level were to be reviewed by the oversight committee, as it was observed that such problems might be present in other classes other than Class 8.
The Centre told the court that after the previous instructions of the court, the Ministry of Education had formed an oversight committee on March 16, which was led by former Supreme Court judge, Indu Malhotra. The committee will revise and finalise curriculum materials dealing with the study of law and the judiciary, with the National Judiciary Academy.
And the government also reported reconstituting the National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC), now consisting of 20 members led by MC Pant, and mathematician Manjul Bhargava as co-chair.
The court had previously raised objections to references to corruption in the judiciary in Class 8 textbooks and said that such material would adversely affect the young and impressionable minds. The issue is still in discussion with amendments being made.