The Delhi excessive court docket has closed the proceedings on a petition difficult the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress authorities’s choice to ban the import of Salman Rushdie’s controversial novel, “The Satanic Verses”, in 1998.
In a latest order, Justice Rekha Palli-led excessive court docket bench noticed that the petition, which was pending since 2019, was infructuous and the petitioner can be entitled to take all actions in respect of the ebook.
The ebook was banned in 1988 by the Congress authorities claiming that it might give rise to regulation and order issues. The ebook had triggered a large worldwide row as sections of Muslims the world over termed it as blasphemous.
Petitioner Sandipan Khan had claimed within the court docket that he was unable to import the ebook on account of a notification issued by the Central Board of Oblique Taxes and Customs on October 5, 1988, banning its import in India.
He stated the notification wasn’t obtainable on the web site. It wasn’t even current with the officers.
The court docket famous that the stated notification wasn’t produced within the court docket.
“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, in reality, the purported writer of the stated notification has additionally proven his helplessness in producing a replica of the stated notification in the course of the pendency of the current writ petition since its submitting means again in 2019,” the bench, additionally comprising Justice Saurabh Banerjee, noticed.
The court docket presumed that no such notification existed.
“Within the gentle of the aforesaid circumstances, now we have no different choice besides to presume that no such notification exists, and subsequently, we can not study the validity thereof and get rid of the writ petition as infructuous,” it concluded.
Salman Rushdie, a naturalised American based mostly in New York, has confronted demise threats since his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” was declared blasphemous by Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Khomeini, making Salman Rushdie a world image of free speech.
The 76-year-old British-American writer was on stage in August 2022 when he was stabbed as much as 12 occasions by accused Hadi Matar in jail for tried homicide.
Rushdie misplaced an eye fixed within the assault.
With inputs from PTI
