Published on : 02 Oct 2025, 9:57 am 4 min read

Recently, the Delhi High Court in Elsevier Ltd v. Alexandra Elbakyan issued an order to block access to the shadow library website Sci-hub and its mirror websites in India, in response to a copyright infringement suit.

The Union Ministry of Information and Technology and the Department of Telecommunications were directed to notify internet and telecom service providers to restrict access to the sites. This judgment constitutes a considerable setback for researchers within the scientific community who benefit from freely accessible research, as it neglects to acknowledge even a minimal extent of user rights in the context of copyright law application.

Section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 acts as a gateway for user rights,

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