Delhi police have sent a notice to Penguin Random House India asking it to join the probe into the alleged circulation of a preprint copy of former army chief Manoj Naravane’s unpublished memoir, while adding charges of criminal conspiracy to the case.

Controversy had broken out last week after Rahul Gandhi cited the book — which purportedly portrays the government leadership as indecisive during a Chinese advance in Ladakh — only to be prevented from speaking in Parliament on an “unpublished” work.

His later brandishing of a purported copy of the memoir, titled Four Stars of Destiny, led to the police filing an FIR on Monday, alleging unauthorised circulation.

“A notice has been sent to the publisher,” a senior police officer said on Wednesday.

“We have posed multiple queries and sought detailed responses relating to the alleged circulation of the manuscript. They have been asked to join the ongoing investigation.”

Prima facie, he said, there seemed to be a “conspiracy” behind the alleged leak of the manuscript and its circulation in PDF form to various platforms.

Rahul had cited “excerpts” from the memoir that reportedly claims the top political leadership in Delhi failed to give clear directions to then army chief Naravane while Chinese tanks were advancing on Indian territory in August 2020.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh had objected, saying an unpublished book could not be cited in Parliament.

A day later, Rahul had carried a hardbound copy of the purported book inside the Parliament complex and challenged the government’s claim that the book “does not exist”. He said he wanted to give the copy to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Amid the controversy, the publisher claimed on Monday that Naravane’s memoir “had not gone into publication”. Rahul countered this on Tuesday, citing a December 2023 social media post by Naravane that said his book was “available now”.

Shortly after Rahul’s comment on Tuesday, Naravane had broken his silence and shared Penguin Random House India’s statement, posting: “This is the status of the book.”

That statement, issued on Monday after the police had registered the FIR, had added: “…No copies of the book in print or digital form have been published, distributed, sold or otherwise made available to the public”.

Later, responding to Rahul’s comments, the publisher said a book available for preorder was different from a published book. The question remains unanswered that if the book had not been published, how did Rahul get hold of a copy?