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27 fake social science books of class 12 were recovered from the shop. The books had fake symbols and fake signatures of NCERT.
New Delhi: Delhi Police has busted the racket by seizing more than 1.7 lakh pirated NCERT books worth more than Rs 2.4 crore. In this regard, the police have arrested three people including father and son. The accused have been identified as Prashant Gupta (48) and his sons Nishant Gupta (26) and Arvind Kumar. In Prashant and Nishant’s shop, the police got a large stock of pirated books instead of real NCERT books.
Fake books were being sold from a shop on Mandoli Road
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara) Prashant Gautam said that on 16 May, the police had received a secret information about the sale of books of Pirated NCERT (National Educational Research and Training) from a shop on Mandoli Road. After which the racket was exposed. The statement said that the shop was being operated by the father and son, who have been taken into custody. The DCP said, “27 fake social science books of class 12 were recovered from the shop. There were fake symbols and fake signatures of NCERT on books, which they seemed authentic. The verification made by NCERT on the spot confirmed that the material was fake and violated the Copyright Act.
Books were ordered from Hiranki near Alipur, Delhi
During interrogation, the accused revealed that fake books were sourced from a deer warehouse near Alipur, Delhi. Acting on this information, the police raided the place mentioned and recovered about 1.7 lakh pirated books, which cost more than Rs 2.4 crore. Arvind Kumar owned the campus was rented and used to stock pirated books. The official said that an NCERT team on the site confirmed that the entire consignment violated the copyright criteria.
Fake books were selling for almost 20 years
During interrogation, Gupta admitted to running his shop for more than two decades, in which Nishant joined the business five years ago. In the greed of easy profits, both of them started buying books from suppliers. An FIR was lodged at MS Park Police Station under the relevant provisions of Section 318 (fraud) and Copyright Act of the Code of India (BNS). The DCP said that the police is now increasing the scope of investigation to detect the entire supply chain involved in the construction, distribution and sale of fake NCERT books. This involves identifying the possible collusion by illegal printing press, transport middlemen and wholesale distributors or local vendors.
