NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police claimed to have busted a syndicate involved in printing pirated books of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) with the arrest of a 28-year-old man. Abhishek Chaudhary, who lives in east Delhi’s Shakarpur, was arrested on March 12, after the police received information that an illegal publication unit was operating in Trans Yamuna area.
The offset unit was allegedly publishing pirated NCERT books from 6th to 12th standard of different subjects for the new academic session.
“We approached the NCERT office for providing assistance to unearth the entire nexus. A raid was conducted and the entire setup was unearthed,” said Rajiv Ranjan, Additional Commissioner of Police.
Ranjan said the accused was involved in printing and circulating pirated NCERT books on a large scale. “The printing unit was situated in Gazipur village. A huge quantity of pirated and semi-finished books worth Rs 50 lakh were recovered from his possession,” the officer said.
The Ministry of Human Resource and Development has made attempts to make NCERT books mandatory for CBSE-affiliated schools amid allegations that several schools were compelling students to purchase costly books of private publishers. “The school managements were allegedly getting hefty monetary benefits by the publishers in lieu of prescribing the books,” the officer said. “After the government’s move, there was a sudden rise in demand for NCERT books and unscrupulous elements exploited the situation by getting printed pirated books and hooked in the sellers by offering a higher profit margin.”
The accused told the police that in 2017, he came in contact with someone, who told him that there was a huge profit in publishing of pirated NCERT books due to their shortage. Subsequently, Chaudhary established an offset press and solely started publishing those books, the police said.
CASE FILED UNDER COPYRIGHT ACT
A case under of the Copyright Act was registered against the accused. Copyright law allows for civil and criminal remedies in case of infringement, though civil remedies are often applied.