Censured for the contents of a school textbook chapter on corruption in the judiciary that they drafted, Prof Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar have moved the Supreme Court to spell out their stand on the controversy.The three academic experts – who were barred from offering their expertise following the row over a chapter on corruption in judiciary in a Class VIII NCERT Social Science textbook titled ‘Exploring Society: India and Beyond’ — on Monday submitted that no individual had the sole say in the drafting of the content and it was a collective process.Directing their application be taken on record, a Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi posted it for hearing after two weeks.Senior advocates Arvind Datar, Gopal Sankaranarayanan and J Sai Deepak — representing Danion, Kumar and Diwakar, respectively – submitted that the earlier comments of the Bench had caused great prejudice to them and hence they had filed applications to explain their stance.“These are not fly-by-night persons. They are academicians with a lot of credibility. The author himself was an advocate and has appeared before this court,” Sankaranarayanan told the Bench.“The sum and substance of the application is that this was a collective process and no individual had the sole say or authority,” Deepak submitted.On behalf of the Centre, Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj told the Bench that a three-member committee consisting of Justice Indu Malhotra (retd), senior advocate KK Venugopal and HNB Garhwal University Vice-Chancellor Prakash Singh had been constituted to review the contents in question.The committee would collaborate with the National Judicial Academy at Bhopal headed by former apex court judge Justice Aniruddha Bose, the Bench said.It also took note of a notification issued by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on April 2, reconstituting the National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC) — a high-powered committee for the preparation of the national syllabus and teacher learning material. Headed by MC Pant, the committee will have 20 distinguished members.Terming the publication of a chapter on corruption in judiciary in a Class VIII NCERT Social Science textbook a “deep-rooted conspiracy to malign the judiciary”, the Supreme Court on February 26 imposed a blanket ban on the controversial book and publication or circulation of its content.It had ordered seizure of all physical copies of the first edition Social Science textbook for Class VIII titled ‘Exploring Society: India and Beyond’ published by the NCERT in February 2026. It had also ordered immediate takedown of its digital versions and said that the three experts should not be involved in any future projects of similar nature.