The Supreme Court of India, led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, took suo motu cognizance of a controversial chapter on judicial corruption in the NCERT Class 8 social science textbook, prompting the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to withdraw the book from its website.
The chapter highlighted challenges faced by the judiciary, including corruption, a massive backlog of cases, and insufficient judges, quoting former Chief Justice BR Gavai on the negative impact of corruption on public confidence.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi brought the matter to the Court, arguing that the chapter unfairly singled out the judiciary while ignoring corruption in other institutions such as the legislature, executive, and bureaucracy.
The Chief Justice expressed strong disapproval, stating he would not allow “anyone on earth” to taint the judiciary’s integrity.
He noted that many high court judges had contacted him, expressing concern over the chapter’s content. Justice Joymalya Bagchi highlighted that the textbook undermined the constitutional “basic structure” by compromising the judiciary’s independence.
The bench emphasized that while transparency and accountability are vital, selective portrayal of corruption in the judiciary alone was inappropriate, particularly for students.
The book contained figures on pending cases: approximately 81,000 in the Supreme Court, 62.4 lakh in high courts, and 4.7 crore in district and subordinate courts.
It described the judiciary’s internal complaint mechanisms, including the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System, which had received over 1,600 complaints between 2017 and 2021.