The Supreme Court Friday recalled its March 11 direction blacklisting academics Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar in connection with the row over the inclusion of a section on “corruption in the judiciary” in the NCERT Class 8 Social Science textbook, publication and distribution of which was banned.

Its March 11 order had come in the wake of the court taking suo motu cognizance of the matter following a report in The Indian Express on February 24.

The bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi agreed to pleas by the three academics to remove the directions against them.

“While we reiterate, in no uncertain terms, that the curriculum contained in the Class 8 NCERT textbook was wholly undesirable and unnecessary, remedial steps regarding the insertion of new content relating to the Indian judiciary have already been initiated by the Government of India through the constitution of an expert committee headed by a former judge of this Court,” the bench said.

“However, in view of the explanation furnished by the applicants, namely the authors, we deem it appropriate to modify paragraph 8 of the order and recall the direction issued to the Government of India, the State Governments, Union Territories, universities, and educational institutions to disassociate themselves from the applicants in academic activities,” it said.

The bench said the Centre and state governments and other authorities will be free to make their own decisions on associating with them, independent of its observations.

“In this regard, we leave it open to the Union of India, the State Governments, and other competent authorities to take an independent decision without being influenced by the observations made in paragraph 8 of the aforesaid order,” it said.

It also recalled the first line of paragraph 8 of its March 11 order which said the three academics had deliberately and knowingly misinterpreted the facts.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the government would not like to associate itself with the three experts. “We would not like to be associated with any such members who drafted that Class 8 chapter,” he said.

The bench said it was up to the government what to do.

Mehta said he had also come across one such instance in the Class 11 textbook. “These are cartoons … But for the impressionable age group…this is not a place for cartoons,” he said.

The bench said it can be looked into by the committee headed by Justice Indu Malhotra (retd) which was constituted by the Centre to examine the matter.