Acting on complaint of plagiarism filed by a Noida based author against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal, Noida’s local court has ordered the Noida police to investigate the matter under Section 202 of the CrPc. Complainant Ajay Pal Nagar had alleged that Kejriwal’s book Swaraj has copied the contents in his book titled Bharatiya Raj Vyawastha. Nagar claimed that he had presented the book to Kejriwal and he was appalled to see its content being copied in ‘Swaraj’ that was published later. Court has asked police to submit its report by mid-June.
The court, in its order, directs Badalpur police to look into the matter by going through the affidavit and documents produced by the complainant as evidence. “Submit a report before the court by June 16, 2014 on the status of the investigation of the case,” Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate-II ordered. Court has fixed a date in July for next hearing. Although the court gave its order earlier this week, police got the copy of it on Wednesday. “We have received the copy of order along with books of both Arvind Kejriwal and Ajaypal Nagar and other materials and have started investigation. We are planning to meet both parties,” said a senior police official of Greater Noida.
Nagar, in his complaint before the court, had alleged that 70 per cent content of Swaraj has been copied from his book, which is a clear violation of Copy Right Act 1957. Nagar had said that he wrote the book Bharatiya Raj Vyawastha in 2011 and the book was published in February 2012. later, he sent a copy of the book to Kejriwal on March 26.
“Swaraj was total copy of his book with some Government documents added. Many paragraphs, pages, references, lines were lifted from my book. The soul of ‘Swaraj’ was that of my book which encompassed 70 per cent of my book while the rest was RTI and social-work annexure type references which was not a writer’s job. Ultimately any writer, editor, publisher or even reader would come to a conclusion that this is a case of naked plagiarism,” said Nagar, adding that he is fighting the case to get justice as an author.