  The masses of the low-lying scalar mesons are investigated in the
three-flavor Nambu Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model by treating the scalar mesons as
composite objects of a quark and an antiquark. It is known that a simple $\bar
qq$ picture fails to reproduce so-called inverse mass ordering for the scalar
mesons. Recently a new mechanism to reproduce the observed mass spectrum of the
scalar mesons was proposed in a linear sigma model by introducing flavor
symmetry breaking induced by the U(1) axial anomaly. Motivated by this
proposal, we examine whether this new mechanism works also in the NJL model. By
calculating the scalar meson masses, we find that the NJL model reproduces the
observed mass ordering with sufficient strength of the new term. With this
mechanism, it turns out that the constituent strange quark mass gets degenerate
to that of the up and down quark if the inverse mass ordering is reproduced. We
also discuss the scalar diquark masses to check the consistency of the
degeneracy of the constituent quark masses with the light baryon masses.
