In a decisive move against piracy in academic publishing, the Delhi High Court has ordered the blocking of well-known platforms Sci-Hub and Sci-Net. The directive came in response to a complaint by global publishing giants Elsevier, Wiley India, and the American Chemical Society, who accused the sites of massive copyright violations.
Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora instructed the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to ensure access to the platforms is cut off. Within 72 hours, notices must be sent to service providers, followed by swift compliance from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) within a day.
The Court’s order pointed to the staggering scale of alleged infringement—over 88 million academic papers housed on these platforms. Authorities also noted that multiple countries have already banned the sites.
At the heart of the matter is Alexandra Elbakyan, the Russian computer programmer who founded Sci-Hub. Back in December 2020, she promised the Court that no new copyrighted material would be uploaded. However, publishers argued that recent content from 2022 had appeared on the sites, directly breaching her undertaking.
The Court agreed, calling Elbakyan’s actions a “wilful disregard” of its earlier order and declaring her prima facie guilty of contempt. Importantly, the judgment stressed that her status as a foreign national does not shield her from accountability under Indian jurisdiction.
Until the next hearing in December, the injunction ensures that both Sci-Hub and Sci-Net remain inaccessible in India—a temporary halt in the ongoing tug-of-war between open access advocates and traditional academic publishers.
