The Tamil Nadu government, led by the TVK, has cancelled the exclusive copyright granted to Bloomsbury Publishing India Private Limited for the English version of Part I of the High-Level Committee on Union-State Relations report and directed that it be made freely available in the public domain.
The move came two days after a guest article published in the Times of India questioned how a public document prepared in both Tamil and English had been given exclusively to a private publisher instead of being made freely accessible.
According to a Government Order (GO) issued by the Public (Law and Order-F) Department on 30 July 2026, Secretary to Government E. Sundaravalli directed the High-Level Committee on Union-State Relations to immediately upload the English version of the report to the committee’s official website (hlcusr.tn.gov.in) to ensure transparency. The order also instructed the committee to cancel the exclusive copyright granted for the English edition by following the due process of law.
As a result, the English version of the report is now available for download from the committee’s website.
The GO stated that the government had, after careful consideration, decided to extend the same open-access policy to the English version that had already been implemented for the Tamil edition.
The Tamil version of Part I had already been made available in the public domain under a government order issued on February 16, 2026, allowing any publisher to reproduce it free of charge to ensure wider dissemination. However, the English version remained under an exclusive copyright arrangement with Bloomsbury, with the hardbound edition priced at ₹799 and hosted online for sale.
Following the Times of India report published on 29 July 2026, the Home Department issued an order ratifying the committee’s decision to grant open access to the Tamil version of the report. The subsequent July 30 order extended the same principle to the English edition.
The order directed the committee to “grant open access by hosting the English version of Part-I report of the High Level Committee on Union-State Relations also in public domain immediately to ensure transparency and to cancel the exclusive copyright provided on the English version of the Part-I report… by following the due procedure of law.”
It is noteworthy that the exclusive copyright for the English edition had originally been granted to Bloomsbury with the objective of taking the committee’s recommendations to a wider audience beyond Tamil Nadu.
Not only submitted Kanna.
The English version was being sold by Bloomsbury. Tweeted by Guna sir on March 31 👇
After recent Times of India article, open access has been given and exclusive copyright has been cancelled. It’ll be put in public domain to ensure transparency https://t.co/iEjPsPo0lX pic.twitter.com/3hdRdjDx1W— Siddharth Prabhakar (@Sidprabhakar7) July 31, 2026
It is reported that several committees on Centre-State relations had been constituted by both the Union and Tamil Nadu governments over the years, but their recommendations had largely remained confined within Tamil Nadu. The committee had therefore planned to publish the report not only in Tamil and English but also in other regional languages so that its recommendations could reach audiences across India and abroad. The English copyright was initially assigned to a private publisher to facilitate that wider dissemination.
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