No more import ban on Salman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses'? HC says 1988 order untraceable

Salman Rushdie

Delhi high court on Thursday shut the proceedings on a petition challenging the Rajiv Gandhi government's decision to prohibit the import of Salman Rushdie's controversial book "The Satanic Verses" in 1988.

The order effectively lifts the three-decade ban on the novel.

The court said the government was unable to produce the original notification that imposed the ban, adding that it has to be presumed that it does not exist.

Earlier, in an order passed on November 5, a bench headed by Justice Rekha Palli observed that the petition, which was pending since 2019, was therefore infructuous and the petitioner would be be entitled to take all actions in respect of the book as available in law.

In 1988, the then Rajiv Gandhi government had imposed a ban on the Booker-Prize winning author's book amid concerns over law and order issues. Muslims across the world viewed the book as "blasphemous". It also sparked violent protests and book burnings across the Muslim world, including in India, which has the world's third largest Muslim population.

Petitioner Sandipan Khan had argued in court that he was unable to import the book on account of a notification issued by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs on October 5, 1988, banning its import into the country in accordance with the Customs Act, but the same was neither available on any official website nor with any of the authorities concerned.

"What emerges is that none of the respondents could produce the said notification dated 05.10.1988 with which the petitioner is purportedly aggrieved and, in fact, the purported author of the said notification has also shown his helplessness in producing a copy of the said notification during the pendency of the present writ petition since its filing way back in 2019," the bench, also comprising Justice Saurabh Banerjee, observed.

"In the light of the aforesaid circumstances, we have no other option except to presume that no such notification exists, and therefore, we cannot examine the validity thereof and dispose of the writ petition as infructuous," it concluded.

During the course of the proceedings in the court, authorities had said the notification was untraceable, and therefore, could not be produced.

In 1989, Iran's then supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie, sending the Booker Prize-winning author into hiding for six years. In August 2022, Rushie was stabbed while delivering a lecture in New York, leaving him blind in one eye.

(With inputs from agencies)