TIRUCHY: The Tamil Nadu National Law University (TNNLU) has decided not to initiate disciplinary action against a final-year student who refused to delete a blog post criticising a recent Supreme Court order banning a Class 8 NCERT Civics textbook and blacklisting its authors.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant had imposed the ban last month as the book carried a chapter on alleged corruption in judiciary. The bench said it appeared to be a “deep-rooted, well-planned conspiracy” aimed at defaming the judiciary and weakening its institutional authority.
The law student, A Rishi Kumar, published the blog on Substack on March 14. In it, he argued that the court’s decision underestimated students’ ability to understand a Civics chapter that largely praises the judiciary while also briefly acknowledging its shortcomings.
He also criticised the blacklisting of authors Michel Danino, Suparna Diwakar and Alok Prasanna Kumar, calling the move excessive and unjustified. After the post went viral, the university received complaints from several individuals from other states who claimed to be lawyers, sources said.
But Kumar refused to take down the post despite receiving an e-mail from registrar SM Balakrishnan on March 20 advising him to do so. “I am receiving a spate of phone calls from advocates of the Supreme Court and various high courts as well as a few judges and students of law criticising your article posted in Linkedin through Substack. The reputation of the Institution is at stake. Therefore, I request you to take down the article immediately in the best interest of the university and yourself,” the note read.
Clarifying the university’s stance on Thursday, Balakrishnan said no action would be taken. “He wrote in his personal capacity and did not mention the university. There is nothing wrong with criticism. The Supreme Court is not infallible. We do not want to jeopardise his future,” he said. Speaking to TNIE, Kumar said he had anticipated criticism but not the scale of attention the post received, adding that it gained wider traction after the post was shared by advocate Prashant Bhushan. He has since resumed attending classes.