The Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea challenging the 1988 ban by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) on the import of author Salman Rushdie’s book, ‘The Satanic Verses’. This comes after the CBIC failed to produce the said ban notice dated October 5, 1988, and admitted before the bench that it was “untraceable”.
Declaring the petition as frivolous, a bench of the court on November 5 wrote that it had no alternative “but to assume that there is no such notice”. In the opinion of the court, it clarified that the plaintiff “shall have the right to take all measures in relation to the said letter as available by law.”
The petitioner, Sandipan Khan, represented by advocate Uddyam Mukherjee, moved the Delhi HC in 2019 after he could not import the document because it was barred. He was also told by various bookstores that the book is not allowed to be sold in India and that the said book is not published in India.
Rushdie’s book was released in 1988 by the London-based Viking/Penguin Group and was not allowed to reach Indian readers because of a CBIC notice, Khan, who claims to be a book lover, had sent.
Khan, in his petition, asked the court to declare the notice issued under the Customs Act, 1962, which prohibits the importation of the book into India, unconstitutional, quashed and set it aside. Khan also requested that the court declare that he can continue to import the book from his publisher/international seller or on Indian or international e-commerce websites and that such action would not constitute a violation of the CBIC notice.
Khan had denied that the notice was not on the authority’s website and was not with the authority. Among others who have responded to this list of petitions are the Secretary of the Ministry of Finance under the Ministry of Finance and the Secretary of Home Affairs in the Ministry of Home Affairs. In November 2022, the authorities admitted before the court that “the notification is not traceable and, therefore, could not be issued.”
Considering this situation, the bench decided that, “From the above, it appears that none of the respondents can produce the notification dated 05.10.1988 in which the petitioner (Khan) was harassed, in fact, the writer of the said notification also showed his helplessness in producing a copy of this notification in time The present petition has since been filed way back in 2019… In view of the aforesaid circumstances, we have no other option but to assume that there is no such notice, therefore, we are unable to examine its merits and dismiss the writ petition as frivolous. .”