Kolkata, Jan 10 The Calcutta High Court on Friday rejected the plea by a leading human rights group for allotment of a stall for the Kolkata International Book Fair 2025, scheduled to begin by the end of this month.
The Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) had earlier week approached the single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha after the Publishers & Booksellers Guild, the organiser of the book fair, denied it space within the fairground for setting up a stall.
In its petition, the APDR has accused the guild authorities of not maintaining the minimum transparency in the allotment of stalls.
The matter came up for hearing at Justice Sinha’s bench on Friday.
During the hearing, the Guild counsel argued that the APDR was unable to provide the necessary documents like licenses, registration certificates and catalogues, among others, which are mandatory conditions to get stall allotment.
The APDR counsel did not contest the objections raised by the Guild Counsel. Its contention was that since they criticised the absence of any stall from Bangladeshi publishers in the book fair this year, unlike in previous years, their application for stall allotment was rejected by the Guild authorities.
Thereafter, Justice Sinha observed that since the book fair is a private affair and not a state-run affair, the validity of the petition by APDR does not stand and hence the petition was dismissed.
The Kolkata International Book Fair this year has been scheduled from January 28 to February 9. With Germany being the theme country for the event this time, the Guild has got confirmation from countries like the United Kingdom, the United States of America, France, Italy, Spain, Spain, Peru, Argentina and Colombia among others, but not from any publisher from Bangladesh.
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