New Delhi, The Delhi Excessive Courtroom has closed the proceedings on a petition difficult the Rajiv Gandhi authorities’s choice to ban the import of Salman Rushdie’s controversial novel, “The Satanic Verses”, in 1988, saying since authorities have failed to supply the related notification, it must be presumed that it doesn’t exist.
In an order handed on November 5, a bench headed by Justice Rekha Palli noticed that the petition, which was pending since 2019, was subsequently infructuous and the petitioner could be be entitled to take all actions in respect of the e-book as accessible in legislation.
The Centre banned the import of the Booker Prize-winning writer’s “The Satanic Verses” for law-and-order causes in 1988, after Muslims internationally seen it as blasphemous.
Petitioner Sandipan Khan had argued in courtroom that he was unable to import the e-book on account of a notification issued by the Central Board of Oblique Taxes and Customs on October 5, 1988, banning its import into the nation in accordance with the Customs Act, however the identical was neither accessible on any official web site nor with any of the authorities involved.
“What emerges is that not one of the respondents might produce the stated notification dated 05.10.1988 with which the petitioner is purportedly aggrieved and, actually, the purported writer of the stated notification has additionally proven his helplessness in producing a replica of the stated notification through the pendency of the current writ petition since its submitting approach again in 2019,” the bench, additionally comprising Justice Saurabh Banerjee, noticed.
“Within the gentle of the aforesaid circumstances, we’ve got no different choice besides to presume that no such notification exists, and subsequently, we can’t study the validity thereof and get rid of the writ petition as infructuous,” it concluded.
In addition to assailing the ban notification, the petitioner had sought to put aside different associated instructions issued by the Ministry of Dwelling Affairs in 1988.
The petition had additionally sought instructions to allow him to import the e-book from its writer or worldwide e-commerce web sites.
Throughout the course of the proceedings within the courtroom, authorities had stated the notification was untraceable, and subsequently, couldn’t be produced.
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