Trichy: The Tamil Nadu National Law University has decided to stand with its final year law student, A Rishi Kumar, whose blog – The SC has no spine – criticising the apex court’s stand in the Class VIII NCERT lesson issue, unleashed an avalanche of response, both negative and positive.
After receiving calls and letters from individuals claiming to be lawyers from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, urging the university to direct the student to take down the post on the ground that it would amount to contempt of court, the university did write to the student requesting him to delete the post in the ‘best interest of the institution since its reputation’ is at stake.
However, after Rishi Kumar sent a strongly-worded response, asserting that he would not delete the post as it was written in his personal capacity, the university chose to reconsider its stance.
The student said: “It should be clear that the university has absolutely no jurisdiction over my personal expression. You do not own my voice or conscience.”
The callers threatened to take up the matter with the Bar Council. “Therefore, as an advisory note, and to protect him since he has only two months left to complete his course, we asked him to take it down,” said registrar S M Balakrishnan.
“However, since he is not willing to take it down and is ready to face anything externally, the university will stand by him. He stood for his constitutional values. Fair criticism of the courts is always permitted, and the top court is no exception,” the registrar said.
No disciplinary action has been taken against the student, and he continues to attend classes, the official added. The blog was appreciated by lawyers such as Prashant Bhushan.
Rishi Kumar published the blog on his Substack on March 14, criticising the Supreme Court’s Feb ruling to ban the Class VIII NCERT textbook over chapters related to ‘judicial corruption’. Within days, the post spread widely across social media platforms, far beyond what he expected. “It spread in ways I didn’t expect,” Rishi said, adding that strangers began tracing his contact details and reaching out – some in support and some against.
