Man held for allegedly pirating NCERT books

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Tuesday said they have arrested a 38-year-old man and busted his racket that was allegedly involved in printing pirated National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) books for classes 6 to 12.

“The poor quality pirated books were being supplied in the market at cheaper rates causing huge revenue loss to the NCERT. Such books are directly supplied to sellers for selling them as genuine ones. The sellers were offered a high-profit margin...,” said deputy police commissioner (crime) Rajesh Deo. Police said 5,000 pirated books, 80,000 printed sheets of paper, from which 12,000 pirated books can be prepared, 166 metallic plates used for printing, two latest offset printing machines, and a large number of plain papers containing NCERT watermarks were seized. Deo said the NCERT books have been in huge demand as the Union education ministry has made them mandatory for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) affiliated schools. He added the move came amid allegations that schools were allegedly compelling students to purchase costly books of private publishers.

Last month, the special investigation unit-2 (SIU-2) of the branch received information that a publication unit in Mandoli was involved in printing pirated NCERT books. On September 18, the team along with vigilance and production officers of the NCERT raided the printing unit and seized finished and semi-finished pirated books. A case of cheating, forgery, and under the Copyright Act was registered and raids were held to nab the alleged mastermind of the racket, Manoj Jain.

“We arrested Jain on October 4 (Monday) and booked him in the case. He is the owner of the printing press that was raided...,” Deo said. Police are trying to nab others involved in the racket.