The Centre on Thursday said that the government is not planning to remove Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution from the curriculum in schools and colleges.

The development comes after Minister of State for Human Resource Development Satyapal Singh had claimed that Darwin’s evolution theory was “scientifically wrong” and that there was no evidence to prove evolution.

Rajya Sabha MPs, Neeraj Shekhar of the Samajwadi Party and expelled Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Ritabrata Banerjee, asked whether the Ministry of Human Resource Development believed that Darwin’s theory was scientifically wrong and if the government was planning to remove the theory from the curriculum in schools and colleges.

Replying to the question, Satypal Singh told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that the Central Board of Secondary Education had Darwin’s theory in its curriculum for Class 12 Biology and that there is no proposal being considered to remove it, he added.

Satyapal Singh had stirred a controversy in January after he had said, “Nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oral, have said they saw an ape turning into a man.” Soon after, members of the scientific community drafted a letter asking him to retract his statement. The Union minister had even called for an international debate on the topic.

Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar had said that he had asked Singh to refrain from commenting on topics like Darwin’s theory of evolution. “We should not dilute science. This is the advice I have given him,” Javadekar had said.