2 min readNew DelhiFeb 26, 2026 07:44 PM IST
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken strong exception to the NCERT class 8 textbook which includes a section titled “Corruption in the Judiciary” – that has triggered strong criticism and a complete ban on its publication by the Supreme Court, sources said.
Expressing his anguish, Prime Minister Modi, in a cabinet meeting held on Tuesday, directed Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to find out who is responsible. “Someone has to be held accountable” for this, sources quoted the PM as saying.
Modi took up the issue in the cabinet meeting, the first to be held at Seva Teerth, the newly-constructed PMO. According to sources, the Prime Minister asked: “What are we teaching our children? What are we teaching class 8 students? Who is monitoring it?” Even as Pradhan tried to explain, Modi insisted that “someone has to be responsible for it” and that “someone has to be held accountable” for what happened.
Sources in the government said Modi was “extremely unhappy and annoyed over the episode.”
On Thursday, the Supreme Court imposed a complete ban on further publication, printing or digital dissemination of NCERT Class 8 book which includes a section titled “Corruption in the Judiciary” and said that it would like a deeper probe into the matter. A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M. Pancholi also issued notices to the Secretary, School Education Department in the Ministry of Education, and the Council Director, asking them to show cause why action under the Contempt of Courts Act or any other provisions of law should not be initiated against them.
On February 25, The Indian Express had reported that the new Social Science textbook for Class 8, released by the NCERT, includes a section on “Corruption in the Judiciary” as part of a chapter on “The Role of the Judiciary in our Society”. The chapter lists “corruption at various levels of the judiciary” and “massive backlog…on account of multiple reasons, such as a lack of an adequate number of judges, complicated legal procedures, and poor infrastructure” as among the “challenges” faced by the judicial system.
