India can import Rushdie’s Satanic Verses after ban order ‘untraceable’

A reader brought the case in 2019 after failing to find official proof of the ban on government websites.

A court in India has lifted a three-decade ban on Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses after authorities were unable to produce the original order prohibiting imports of the controversial novel.

The Delhi High Court quashed the 1988 import ban on Tuesday in a case brought five years ago by reader Sandipan Khan, stating that India’s government had said the notification banning the controversial book was “untraceable”.

“We have no other option except to presume that no such notification exists,” the court said in its order, which was reported on Friday, pointing out that even the customs department official who was said to have written it had “shown his helplessness in producing a copy”.

Khan said he filed his case after being told at bookstores that the novel could not be sold in or imported to in India. When he searched, he could not find official proof of the ban on government websites.

The Satanic Verses, set in London and ancient Mecca, Islam’s holiest site, was published in September 1988 to critical acclaim.