New Delhi: Michel Danino, one of the three NCERT academics earlier barred for life by the Supreme Court over a controversial chapter on judiciary, claimed on Wednesday that the top court had been kept in the dark about the broader context of their work.
He also said that the initial March 11 order of the top court came as a surprise, as the academicians were not heard before the ruling was passed.
The Supreme Court had last week modified its March 11 order that directed the Centre, states and others to disassociate from three academicians, following a row over an NCERT book chapter containing offending contents on corruption in the judiciary.
The apex court left it open to the Centre, states, Union territories, public universities and institutions that receive funds from the central or state governments to take an independent decision on the issue, without being influenced by its observations made in the March 11 order.
French-born Indian scholar Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar were the three academicians involved in the controversial Class 8 textbook chapter.
In an interview with PTI, Danino said the unprecedented order had a chilling effect on educational institutions, but added that the academics were confident the ban would eventually be lifted once the Supreme Court was apprised of the full background, including the mandate under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) 2023.
The initial reaction about the bana was a reaction of surprise because first of all, we had not been heard and this was an ex parte order technically, Danino said.
In view of the severity, the fact that this kind of ban is unprecedented as far as I know in India’s judicial or educational history, it has definitely a chilling effect, intimidating effect with all institutions, so that was certainly surprising, he said.
Danino claimed that the apex court had initially been shown only a very small part of the picture and was not informed about the framework under which the textbook chapter had been prepared.
It (SC) was not aware of the context. It was not aware of the mandate under which we were working – the National Education Policy of 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023. These two foundational documents define very clearly the mandate of our work, he said.
Referring to the court’s direction to NCERT to identify those responsible for the offending chapter and provide their credentials, Danino claimed that the institution had shared the names of the three academics without furnishing details of the committees overseeing the process or their qualifications.
NCERT supplied our three names without giving the mandate under which we were working, without giving the broader context of the two overarching committees that finalised those chapters, and without giving our credentials, he said.
So basically the Supreme Court bench was kept completely in the dark as to the real context in which we were working, he added.
Danino said the three academics remained hopeful that the court would reconsider its order once their side was heard.
We were confident that once we explained this context, the Supreme Court would at least modify its order, at the very least the ban under which we were, he said.
The ban has been removed and some of the remarks that were passed on us were also removed, he added, while noting that he is yet to study the latest order in detail.
Danino, a Padma Shri awardee, was the chairperson of the curricular area group that develops social science textbooks for NCERT. Two others who were part of the drafting committee — Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar — had also come under fire, besides Danino.
Modifying the apex court’s earlier order, a bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi on May 22 also recalled the part that had recorded that the three academics had deliberately and knowingly misrepresented the facts in order to project a negative image of the Indian judiciary to the students of Class 8.
