NCERT reconstitutes textbook committee after Supreme Court rap

NCERT reconstitutes its textbook committee after Supreme Court's ban on a Class 8 social science textbook discussing judicial corruption.

The National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC), which overlooks the formulation of new textbooks, has been reconstituted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), following Supreme Court’s intervention on a section of “corruption in the judiciary,” in the now discontinued Class 8 social science textbook. 

In an April 2 notification, accessed by The Hindu, the NCERT stated that it had reconstituted the 22-member high power committee, which now includes IIT Madras Director V. Kamakoti; and Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) Chairman Raghuvendra Tanwar; R. Venkata Rao, former Vice-Chancellor of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU); and Amarendra Prasad Behera, Joint Director-in-Charge, Central Institute of Educational Technology, NCERT. The committee now consists of 20 members

Three members — Michel Danino, former guest professor at IIT Gandhinagar; M.D. Srinivas, chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai and the late Bibek Debroy, former chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC), have been removed from the NSTC. 

Mr. Danino’s removal from the NSTC comes after the apex court’s order stating that the Centre, States, union territories, universities, and public institutions should dissociate from three members of the textbook development team who drafted the Class 8 social science textbook chapter on the judiciary under question.

The Supreme Court in February had taken up suo motu cognisance of the Class 8 social science textbook released in February which discussed a section on “corruption in the judiciary,” and later imposed a “complete blanket ban,” on use of physical or online copies of the said textbook.

The NCERT has reconstituted the committee nearly three years after first constituting it in July 2023. “In view of the requirement of strengthening the said committee through necessary updates, including additional members, the reconstitution of the NSTC has been undertaken,” the notification mentions.