The Karnataka High Court, on Friday, directed a trial court to hear the plagiarism case against Chetan Bhagat. According to the New Indian Express, the trial court will hear the counsels of Chetan Bhagat and Anvita Bajpai on May 8.
The controversial Indian techie-turned-writer had approached the Karnataka HC to quash the injunction order against the sale of his book “One Indian Girl”.
Justice Ravi Malimath, however, disposed the appeal and directed the trial court to hear both parties. Bhagat’s counsel said that the trial court had still not heard their appeal against the ex-parte order, while Anvita Bajpai’s counsel said that they would defend the HC’s order if an appeal was filed with the trial court.
On April 25, a temporary injunction order staying the sale of the book ‘One Indian Girl’ had been issued by the Bengaluru City Civil Court after Anvita Bajpai accused of Bhagat of plagiarism.
This comes after Bengaluru-based author and research professional Anvita Bajpai alleged that Chetan’s book “has an emotional flow” which is quite similar to her short story ‘Drawing Parallels’. This book was published in 2014 by LiFi Publications, as part of her collection Life, Odds & Ends.
“When I came across several Facebook posts detailing Chetan Bhagat’s latest book, it sounded a lot like my story. So, I read through ‘One Indian Girl’ and kept wondering how the content could be so similar. Then I realised that I had handed a copy of my book to him at the Bangalore Literature Festival in 2014 for feedback,” she had told Scroll.
As soon as she realised the striking similarities with her book, she sent Chetan a legal notice, on February 22 this year, asking him to stop the circulation of the book in stores and also to pay Rs 5 lakh as damages. After Chetan denied all allegations a month later, Anvita decided to approach a civil court in Bengaluru.
Bhagat had then filed an appeal with the Karnataaka HC to quash the injunction order.