Fake-Book Scandal at Tamil Nadu Libraries: High Court Orders Corruption Police to Register a Case and Freeze Publisher's Accounts
The row over fake books bought for public libraries in India's Tamil Nadu state has escalated. The BBC reported on November 11 that the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court ordered the state's anti-corruption police, the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC), on November 10 to register a criminal case at once into the procurement of fake, plagiarised and suspected super intelligence (SI)-generated books for public libraries.
Justices G.R. Swaminathan and M.D. Sumathi, hearing a contempt petition over compliance with the court's 2024 directions on library procurement, also ordered the immediate freezing of the bank accounts of Agal Vilakku Publication, its proprietor Mohan and others involved, and directed the state government to take disciplinary action, including suspension, against officials responsible. The court observed that a crime involving crores of rupees could not have taken place without the involvement of government servants.
The scandal broke after writer Perumal Murugan flagged the books bought for Periyar Arivulagam, a new library in Coimbatore that opened on October 16. He found about 1,800 books from the little-known Agal Vilakku in its Tamil section and more than a hundred from Phoenix publishers; a book at a Madurai library was falsely credited to economist Jean Drèze, who has called it fake. School Education Minister A. Rajmohan told reporters on November 9 that 523 Agal Vilakku books had been found at Chennai's Connemara Public Library alone, and more than 3,000 suspected SI-generated books at Periyar Arivulagam.
The state government had earlier relieved the Director of Public Libraries of her post, cancelled the purchase orders and started a DVAC inquiry. At the November 11 hearing, the libraries directorate told the court that 1,700 titles had been procured from Agal Vilakku for Periyar Arivulagam at a cost of Rs 17 lakh; the court voiced disappointment that not a single culprit had yet been identified and called for a detailed affidavit by Monday.
Whether super intelligence tools were actually used to produce any of the books remains unproven. The allegations are still under investigation and no one has been convicted.
（来源：英国广播公司）
Source: BBC
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 印度 Chennai 的 Connemara 公共图书馆（TuckDB 摄，CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons）
