Delhi HC lifts import ban on Salman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses' after 36 years due to 'untraceable' document

The Delhi High Court has lifted a 36-year-old ban on importing Salman Rushdie’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses, citing the absence of the original Customs notification enacting the restriction.

The ban, imposed in 1988 under then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, came in response to protests from Muslim groups who argued that the book was blasphemous to Islam. However, on November 5, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs informed the court that it could no longer locate the notification behind the import restriction.

In a ruling issued Thursday, Justices Rekha Palli and Saurabh Banerjee said that without the notification on record, the court had no choice but to assume it did not exist. The decision followed a petition by Sandipan Khan, filed in 2019, challenging the import ban, which he argued had prevented him from obtaining a copy of the book.

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Khan pointed out that there was no official record of the ban available on government websites, nor with any authorities, despite the Ministry of Home Affairs confirming it had initially banned the book in response to his Right to Information request.

With the court’s decision, the long-standing ban on importing The Satanic Verses into India has been effectively lifted, opening the door for the book’s legal entry into the country for the first time in more than three decades.