Notification banning ‘The Satanic Verses’ untraceable, HC told

The Delhi high court has said that an import ban on author Salman Rushdie’s controversial 1988 book The Satanic Verses appeared to be “non-existent” after authorities told the court that they could not trace an official notification on the restriction.

The decision appeared to effectively pave the way for the book to be imported to India, three decades after its publication sparked widespread protests across India and the world, prompted the supreme leader of Iran to issue a fatwa to kill the Booker Prize winner, and triggered a global debate on censorship and violence.

In a petition filed in 2019, Sandipan Khan from Vasant Kunj in Delhi, said that he was unable to import the book due to a notification issued by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs on October 5, 1988, banning its import  in accordance with the Customs Act. However, during the course of the proceedings, the Central Board Of Indirect Taxes & Customs informed the court that the 1988 notification could no longer be traced.

“From the aforesaid, what emerges is that none of the respondents could produce the said notification dated 5.10.1988 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,” a bench of justices Rekha Palli and Saurabh Banerjee said in its November 5 order.

The bench added: “In 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.”

”The petitioner will, therefore, be entitled to take all actions in respect of the said book as available in law.”

Published in 1988, the novel led to targeted attacks, riots and assassination attempts on the Booker Prize winner in different parts of the world over its perceived blasphemy.

During the hearing, Khan’s counsel submitted that though his client in 2017 made efforts to procure a copy of the notification under the Right to Information Act from the Union home ministry’s office, he was informed that the book was banned. He also referred to the customs authorities stand made in November, 2022, wherein they said that the notification could not be produced, as the same was untraceable.

In November 2022, the customs department said that the notification could not be produced as the same was untraceable. Even in the hearing that transpired on Tuesday, the customs department and the revenue department again expressed their helplessness saying that the notification could not be traced.

“The impugned notification is thoroughly misconceived in law as it does not even provide for an assessment under the legal system of India, namely legal provisions specifically devised by the legislature and interpreted by constitutional courts that provide for adequate safeguards to literary works, such that the state may not be able to act in an arbitrary manner and eliminate the rights of its citizens to decide on what to read and on what to refrain from reading,” the plea said.