It has been seen lately that the author of the book, Ms. Monika Arora has filed a criminal complaint against Bloomsbury Publishing India Pvt. Ltd. for “deliberately leaking the PDF version” of her book Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story.
The complaint lodged with the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, also names media platforms- The Quint, and News Laundry apart from journalist Arfa Sherwani, authors Aatish Tasser and William Dalrymple, activist Saket Gokhale, Sociology Professor Nandini Sundar & novelist Meena Kandasamy.
She has contested that Bloomsbury Publishing rescinded their contract without her knowledge and consent and proceeded to leak a PDF version of her book in the public, with an intention to hamper future sales. She has further alleged that the publisher willfully expunged her work, thereby diminishing her goodwill, reputation and standing.
Accordingly the petitioner has registered the complaint for the offence of criminal breach of trust, cheating, mischief, and misappropriation of property under sections 403, 405, 406, 409, 415, 420, 425, 426 of the IPC.
She further submitted that the publisher was pressurized to withdraw her book by Mr. Aatish Tasser, Mr. William Dalrymple, Mr Saket Gokhale, Arfa Sherwani and so they have been booked for the offences of criminal intimidation and statements cresting and promoting enmity, hatred and ill will between classes under section 503, 505, 295A of the IPC.
Further she filed complaint against Mrs. Nandini Sundar, The Qunit and Newslaundry for the offence of illegal receipt and retention of stolen property, despite knowing and having reason to believe the same to be stolen property under sections 379, 410, 411 of the IPC read with section 72 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
On August 25, the Quint had published an article recently, claiming it had accessed and scanned the Bloomsbury draft of the book. NewsLaundry had also published a report making a detailed analysis of the book.
