Bihar CM Nitish Kumar received a major jolt on Monday (June 18) when he was issued notice by top court to justify why he should not remain a party to the intellectual property rights infringement case.

A bench headed by Justice Rohinton F Nariman issued notice on a petition filed by former scholar-turned-politician Atul Kumar Singh.

The bench also stayed an interim order by the Delhi High Court, which had given freedom to Kumar to reopen his case for removal of his name as a party.

In the Delhi High Court, Singh had alleged that a book published by Patna-based ADRI and endorsed by Bihar CM was a plagiarised version of his research project Role of State in Economic Transformation: A case Study of Contemporary Bihar of 2006.

The matter has been posted for next hearing to July 6.

—India Legal Bureau