Ban order on Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses missing amid plea for import

The court also ruled that the petitioner is now “entitled to take all actions in respect of the said book as available in law.”

The Delhi High Court recently concluded a hearing of a petition against the 1988 decision by the late PM Rajiv Gandhi to ban Salman Rushdie’s controversial novel, “The Satanic Verses”.

The decision was announced on Sunday, November 5. The bench, consisting of Justice Rekha Palli and Saurabh Banerjee stated that since the authorities failed to produce the notification that banned the book’s import, it must be assumed that no such notification exists. This ruling effectively nullified the legal barriers that prohibited the book’s import into India.

The case and ruling

Justice Rekha Palli and Justice Saurabh Banerjee while analyzing the case, stated that the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) failed to submit the notification since the writ petition was filed in 2019.

The court noted that the CBIC and other concerned agencies had not submitted any papers that could evidence the existence of such a ban. Therefore the bench concluded that the only course available to it was to suppose that no such notification exists.

The Court said, “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,” Live Law reported.

The court also ruled that the petitioner is now “entitled to take all actions in respect of the said book as available in law.”

Why was Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses banned?

Salman Rushdie, an Indian-born author, wrote, The Satanic Verses in 1988 that highlighted pre-Islamic goddesses and Islamic themes including Prophet Muhammad and the archangel Gabriel—a significant figure in Judeo-Christianity as well. 

Soon after the book was published, it drew the ire of Muslims across the globe including India who described the book as blasphemy. The theme of the book also caused riots around the world which eventually resulted in a death warrant being issued on Salman Rushdie by Iran’s former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Hitoshi Igarashi who translated the book into Japanese was also stabbed to death. Following death threats, Rushdie had to seek refuge in London. He lived in a fortified house under the protection of the British police.

In India, the Congress-led government banned the book in the interest of preventing public order and disturbing communal harmony as the book was capable of provoking violence among the religious communities.

Petition 

The writ petition was filed in 2019 by Sandipan Khan, who argued that he was unable to import the said book due to a notification from CBIC dated October 5, 1988.

In his petition, Sandipan noted that the ban was” ultra víres”, meaning it went beyond the extent of powers granted to the Indian Constitution. Notably, earlier he was said to have sought the official copy of the notification in an RTI application filed in 2017 but was informed the same could not be procured.

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With this ruling, the Delhi HC has opened the door for individuals to take lawful actions regarding The Satanic Verses. Accordingly, the court underlined that now Khan can apply any legal procedures to import or access the book.

Born into a Kashmiri Muslim family in Bombay (now Mumbai) on June 19 in the year 1947 when India won her independence from British rule, Ahmed Salman Rushdie was the son of Cambridge-educated lawyer Anis Ahmed Rushdie and teacher Negin Bhatt.