Chetan Bhagat’s novel’s sale temporarily stalled
Bengaluru court has ordered a temporary injunction against popular fiction writer Chetan Bhagat’s novel One Indian Girl for allegedly plagiarising a short story from another author.
The order was passed on April 19 based on a complaint by Bengaluru-based writer Anvita Bajpai, who has alleged that Bhagat plagiarised content from her book Life, Odds & Ends.
Bhagat, whose novels have been adapted as Bollywood films, was not available for comments but described the allegations as “unthinkable” in a Facebook post. He said the legal notice was deeply unfortunate.
“Today, I learnt that someone called Anvita Bajpai has filed a case in the Bangalore lower court and got a temporary injunction stating something about One Indian Girl based on her already published work,” he said.
“This is for one an absolute surprise for me as I have never read any of this author’s works. My stories are always original — including One Indian Girl — and it is unthinkable for me to do anything like what is suggested. Surely, alleging anything like this in the current digital age is strange.”
Bhagat said in the post that he writes “universal stories about everyday issues”.
“This could be a misunderstanding and am sure will be clarified as what is being suggested is baseless. My publisher’s legal team will be taking appropriate steps. My readers’ trust is most valuable to me and I will never, ever compromise that,” Bhagat added.
However, Bajpai said she gave Bhagat the book to review in 2014, when they met at the Bengaluru Lit Fest. Bajpai has claimed that Bhagat’s book is based on a short story titled Drawing Parallels from her book.
Bajpai, a researcher and technology consultant for start-ups, said the decision to send a legal notice was a difficult one. “Writing is not my primary source of employment and I was wondering if it would be worth my while to get involved in legal matters,” she said.