Recently, the Delhi High Court stepped in to address serious lapses by four online bookstores accused of selling counterfeit S Chand textbooks through Flipkart. Acting on allegations that pirated academic books continued to be sold despite prior complaints to the platform, Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora launched a pointed judicial intervention, signalling that e-commerce intermediaries cannot turn a blind eye when their marketplaces become conduits for systematic copyright violations.
The case arose when S Chand & Company, one of India’s most established academic publishers, detected unusual activity on Flipkart between March and April 2025. During this period, the publisher discovered that four storefronts, All Book Point, Fly Case Gallery, Arun Books, and Simra Collection, were circulating textbooks bearing its registered trademarks but exhibiting tell-tale signs of poor printing quality and suspect origin. As the situation escalated, S Chand purchased sample copies in August 2025, only for its printing experts to confirm that the books were counterfeit, complete with copied illustrations, replicated cover designs, and unauthorised use of the “S CHAND” mark. What deepened the concern was that, despite having formally alerted Flipkart months earlier, the infringing listings continued to remain active, allowing unsuspecting students and parents to purchase pirated material. Adding to the alarm, several of the sellers were later found to be untraceable at the GST-registered addresses they had provided, an indicator of deliberate concealment that the Court viewed gravely.
The Court, after reviewing the plaint and the sample books, expressed clear concern over the scale and brazenness of the infringement. Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora observed that the sellers were affixing S Chand’s marks in such a convincing manner that “To an unwary customer, the counterfeit books being sold on Defendant No. 5’s platform would appear either to be the original products being sold by the Plaintiff, or they are likely to associate the counterfeit books with the Plaintiff.”
The Court further noted that the sellers’ disappearance from their GST-listed premises reinforced the suspicion that “Defendant Nos. 1 to 4 are indeed selling counterfeit books with the intent to ride upon the goodwill and reputation garnered by the Plaintiff.” Finding a strong prima facie case and the risk of irreparable damage to the publisher’s credibility, the Court issued an ex parte ad-interim injunction restraining all four sellers from printing, reproducing, distributing, or selling any pirated S Chand material. Flipkart, too, was ordered to take down the infringing listings and act within 72 hours on any future complaints about unknown third-party sellers.
Consequently, the injunction will remain in effect until the next hearing, which is scheduled for 6 May 2026.
Case Title: S Chand And Company Ltd Vs. Kaushal Kumar And Ors
Case No.: CS(COMM) 1276/2025
Coram: Hon'ble Ms. Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora
Advocate for the Plaintiff: Advs. Rahul Beruar, Nidhi Jain, Manini Sidhu and Aeshna Raghuwanshi
Advocate for the Defendants: Adv. Surabhi Pande
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