Lawfare, General – Others

“We are checking what the publishing house was doing and how the book was available in public domain without approval. We have formally approached the Penguin Random House with a written notice,” a senior police officer aware of the details said about the notice which issued early on Wednesday.

The officer said that a case was lodged on Monday under charges of criminal conspiracy among other offences over the alleged illegal circulation of the manuscript in digital and other formats.

According to the officer, the book was made available before its release both digitally and physically. “We want to know how a hardcover copy with Penguin Random House logo was made available to certain people. The book cover was also prepared allegedly by the publishing house as if it was available for sale. We are also planning to write to Meta and other social media platforms to ascertain how parts of the book were uploaded there, who uploaded them and who shared them,” the officer said. “This illegal practice has been a planned conspiracy which is being probed.”