CJI Surya Kant says courts cannot earn trust by hiding from scrutiny
Speaking at the Ram Jethmalani Memorial Lecture on 14 September, the Chief Justice returned to the NCERT Class 8 chapter that mentioned judicial corruption. The Supreme Court closed that suo motu case on 1 September after 82,440 copies were recalled.
New Delhi2 min read
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Chief Justice of India Surya Kant told an audience at the Ram Jethmalani Memorial Lecture on 14 September that the judiciary cannot earn public trust by shielding itself from scrutiny. He tied the remark to the Supreme Court's own intervention in an NCERT Class 8 textbook that had referred to corruption in the judiciary. The line is a restatement of an order his bench had already signed. It is also a public answer to the charge that the court used contempt tools to police a schoolbook.
On 1 September a bench of the Chief Justice and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana closed the suo motu case In Re: Social Science Textbook for Grade-8 (Part 2). The book, Exploring Society: India and Beyond, carried a section titled The Role of the Judiciary in our Society. The court had taken the matter in February. It issued show-cause notices and, at an earlier stage, barred three people linked to the draft, Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar, from future public-institution academic projects. In the closing order the bench said those earlier remarks were recorded submissions, not findings against the authors.
The Union government appointed a review panel headed by retired Justice Indu Malhotra, with former Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and Professor Prakash Singh, working with the National Judicial Academy in Bhopal. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court the revised chapter was already in print and in circulation. NCERT and the School Education secretary, Sanjay Kumar, apologised. The government recalled 82,440 copies. The bench discharged the show-cause notices and said the object of the proceedings had been substantially achieved. It bound the Union, NCERT and other authorities to the vetting assurances they had given for future editions that deal with public institutions.
The written order, uploaded later, drew the distinction the Chief Justice repeated on 14 September. Fair, informed criticism of judicial work is a legitimate feature of a constitutional democracy, the bench said. What it would not accept was an unverified claim placed in a curriculum for children. The distinction, the order said, is not between criticism and silence. It is between responsible discourse and uninformed assertion.
That formula leaves two open edges. One is pedagogical: who decides what is verified enough for a Class 8 page. The other is institutional: a court that can start a suo motu case, issue contempt process, and then close the file once the book is pulped still holds the power it says it is willing to be criticised for using. The 14 September lecture does not surrender that power. It argues that scrutiny and the court's own intervention can sit in the same sentence.
The recalled print run is the concrete residue. Eighty-two thousand four hundred and forty copies left circulation. A new chapter written under a former Supreme Court judge is now the text that Class 8 students will read on the role of courts. Whether that chapter describes backlog, delays and proven misconduct with enough specificity is a question for the next edition, and for the vetting chain the court has now made a standing obligation.
