India, April 8 -- Professor Michel Danino, educator Suparna Diwakar, and legal researcher Alok Prasanna Kumar defended their roles in the now-withdrawn Class 8 social science chapter on the judiciary.

In an affidavit to the Supreme Court, Danino said the chapter was the result of a "collective and collaborative" process with no individual authorship, and that there was no intent to malign the institution, and contested claims made by NCERT director Dinesh Prasad Saklani.

The three filed separate affidavits on Saturday ahead of Monday's hearing and said the chapter was the outcome of an exercise by a 51-member Textbook Development Team (TDT), with 15 active contributors, and not the work of three individuals as suggested in Saklani's Mar...