Chennai — The Tamil Nadu government has suspended five senior library officials in connection with the alleged procurement of AI-generated, plagiarised and fake books for public libraries, School Education Minister A. Rajmohan announced on Sunday, November 15. The action comes amid a probe by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) into allegations of large-scale financial irregularities in book procurement, The S Bharat reported.

Source: The S Bharat (Nov 15)

The suspended officials are S. Kamatchi, Chief Librarian and Information Officer (in-charge) and Deputy Chief Librarian at the Anna Centenary Library in Chennai; S. Santhana Karthikeyan, Librarian and Information Officer at the same library; J. Juliet, Chief Accounts Officer at the Directorate of Public Libraries; Dinesh Kumar, Chief Librarian and Information Officer (in-charge) at the Kalaignar Centenary Library in Madurai; and V. Santhanakrishnan, a librarian at the Madurai library who was also the official in-charge of the Periyar Arivulagam Library in Coimbatore, according to Mirror Now and The S Bharat.

Source: Mirror Now (Nov 15)

The suspensions are the latest step in a case Awaaz Punjab has been following since writer Perumal Murugan flagged the alleged fraud. On November 10, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court directed the DVAC to register an FIR forthwith, ordered the bank accounts of publisher Agal Vilakku Publication and its proprietor Mohan frozen, and directed the government to take disciplinary action, including suspension, against the officials responsible for the procurement over the last two years. Read the earlier report: Madras High Court orders DVAC FIR over fake, AI-generated library books

The controversy began when writer Perumal Murugan identified approximately 1,800 suspicious titles in the Tamil section of the Periyar Arivulagam Library in Coimbatore, Mirror Now reported. The books, sourced from Agal Vilakku Pathippagam, were found to carry invalid ISBNs alongside fabricated author names and AI-generated text. Researcher S. Satheesh Kumar separately reported finding more than 200 titles from 3GE Learning Publications that allegedly used fake ISBNs; the volumes were priced between Rs 6,000 and Rs 9,900 and, by his analysis, several contained over 60 per cent plagiarised material. These findings are allegations reported by the researchers and the outlets, not findings of a court.

Source: Mirror Now (Nov 15)

Hearing a contempt petition over compliance with its June 2024 directions on library book procurement, a Division Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and M.D. Sumathi had observed that a crime involving crores of rupees could not have taken place without the active involvement of government servants, Bar and Bench reported. The court recorded that the government had acknowledged serious irregularities, that IAS officer Jayanthi had been relieved of her responsibilities as Director of Public Libraries on November 8, that the DVAC had commenced an enquiry and that existing procurement orders stood cancelled.

Source: Bar and Bench (Nov 10)

The allegations against the five suspended officials and the publishers remain allegations under investigation by the DVAC; no court has held any of them guilty. What happens next turns on the DVAC's FIR and enquiry and on the affidavit the High Court directed the Director of Public Libraries to file setting out the full sequence of events, the amount spent and everyone involved.