The Centre has told Delhi High Court that if private publishers publish the exact text of a particular central legislation — or bare acts — it would not amount to a violation of the Copyright Act.

The law ministry’s legislative department said the government has been providing updated, authentic and accurate copies of all central acts in electronic format and citizens were free to download and print them without any charge.

The department said it publishes central acts based on demand and, therefore, print them in limited numbers.

“Since the acts are being published in a limited number on the basis of the requisition received from sellers, the price fixed by the government would be five to ten times higher than that of the publication by private publishers,” it said in an affidavit before a bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V.K. Rao.

It said publication of an act of Parliament by the department was “time consuming”, as it goes through several stages of approval and verification. “Therefore, reproduction or publication of any rules, notifications, regulations, etc. by a private publisher does not violate any of the provisions of the Copyright Act.”

The government was responding to a plea filed by lawyer Arpit Bhargava, who had said the Centre was allowing people to suffer at the hands of private publishers by not ensuring on its own availability of reasonably priced hard copies of its enactments from time to time.

Bhargava said the acts of Parliament were in the public