PIONEER NEWS SERVICE | Dehradun
The Dehradun district administration has registered FIRs against multiple bookstores in the city following allegations of tax evasion, overpricing and illegal transactions. Acting on complaints from parents, authorities seized bill books and stock registers during simultaneous raids conducted by a team led by the city magistrate and three SDMs.
The teams conducted inspections in Universal Book Depot on Rajpur Road, National Book Depot on Dispensary Road and Brother Pustak Bhandar on Subhash Road where they allegedly found multiple violations under various legal provisions including GST evasion, fake publications and untracked ISBN numbers of multiple books.
The Dehradun district magistrate Savin Bansal said that the action was taken amid growing concerns that parents were being forced to buy overpriced books and stationery from specific shops. He said, “Following directives from the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, we decided to take strict action against those responsible. Multiple teams were formed to conduct raids on such bookstores in Dehradun on Saturday. These bookstores were found selling overpriced books, items without bills and evading GST.
The administration registered an FIR against them late on Saturday.” He further stated that several parents associations and committees concerned have complained about these bookstores. “Many complainants also claimed a potential nexus between private schools, publishers and retailers, leading to financial exploitation of parents. Complaints also indicate that some schools were directly involved in pressurising parents to purchase materials from specific vendors. Authorities are now investigating GST evasion and unauthorised book publications, with some books found lacking proper ISBN tracking. The administration is also focusing on school managements suspected of collusion in these practices,” the DM said.
Bansal stated that the district administration knows the gravity of the situation and understands how much parents have to suffer due to such malpractices. He claimed that teams will intensify scrutiny of both bookstores and private educational institutions to prevent further exploitation of parents and students.
