The Supreme Court of India has disabled three academics from earning a living because they wrote a chapter for school textbooks allegedly disparaging the reputation of the judiciary.

A law school student, Rishi Kumar, read the entire chapter and published an article on his Substack explaining that a few sentences had been taken out of context rom the chapter that otherwise praised the Indian judiciary’s contribution to the nation.

The few sentences to which the complainants had objected merely noted there have been some public complaints about the judiciary. Kumar promptly received a letter from his university to take down the post. The university later said it had only sent an “advisory note”.

Then there is the resignation of the non-executive chairman of HDFC Bank, a successful private sector bank, ranked second highest overall by stock market valuations, behind only Reliance Industries. Atanu Chakraborty said he felt compelled to resign because “certain happenings and practices within the bank were not in line with his personal values and ethics”.

The stock market reacted immediately. The bank’s stock fell 8%-9% in a single session and continued to decline, erasing about $16 billion in the bank’s stock value before stabilising.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the stock market regulator, said Chakraborty’s “vague statements” had...

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