HC restrains J&K firm on Oxford Press' plagiarism charges

The Delhi High Court has restrained a J&K-based publishing house from printing, publishing, reproducing and selling a book, parts of which have been allegedly copied from an Oxford University Press (OUP) publication.

While passing an interim order and issuing notice to Narendra Publishing House recently, Justice Anil Kumar said: "... [T]he plaintiff has been able to make out a case for grant of interim injunction. Delay occasioned on account of notice to defendant shall negate and defeat the purpose of grant of interim injunction."

The court also appointed a local commissioner to prepare the inventories of the book concerned, containing the reproduction of the exercises of the Oxford publication.

According to Oxford University Press, the defendants had copied verbatim questions and answers from its mathematics book prescribed by the J&K State Board of School Education in complete violation of its copyright in subject work.

The copying and reproduction of exercises and their solutions from OUP's work had not only infringed copyright but also resulted in a misappropriation of its efforts, management, skill and investment made in bringing out the book, authored by AK Roy, head of the department of mathematics, Birla Higher Secondary School, Kolkata, counsels Rajiv Bansal and Aprajita had contented.

The defendants had undue profits of Rs 5,000,000 and was further causing substantial loss to it, they said.