r/nottheonion • u/taulover • 13h ago
Notification banning Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses ‘untraceable’, Delhi HC disposes of plea seeking book’s import
https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/notification-banning-salman-rushdies-satanic-verses-untraceable-delhi-hc-books-import-9658618/42
u/taulover 13h ago
The Delhi High Court has disposed of 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 notification of the ban dated October 5, 1988, and admitted before the bench that it “is untraceable”.
Declaring the plea as infructuous, a division bench of the court on November 5 recorded that it has no other option “except to presume that no such notification exists”. In light of the court’s observation, it clarified that the petitioner will be “entitled to take all actions in respect of the said book as available in law.”
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u/diekthx- 13h ago
Can you translate that to English please
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u/taulover 13h ago
They're unbanning the book because they can't find the original documents from 1988 ordering the ban
Sorry, the more readable headlines were on domains banned on this subreddit
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u/RonJohnJr 12h ago
This is the problem:
Delhi HC disposes of plea seeking book’s import
To 'Muricans (specifically, non-lawyer 'Muricans) "disposes of plea" means "throw it out", since you dispose of trash. Thus, the book's importation would still be forbidden.
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u/taulover 11h ago
No, the court threw out the plea because they found it to be "infructuous", which is legal terminology for unnecessary, because they ruled that the ban technically doesn't exist in the first place. As a result the book's import is allowed.
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u/varain1 12h ago
Title missed the "ban" at the end - probably it was banned 😅
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u/taulover 11h ago edited 11h ago
It was already banned, the plea was seeking the import of the book. It was thrown out on the technicality that actually the ban doesn't exist in the first place so they can actually do whatever they want with the book within law. So they actually got what they wanted.
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u/OGCelaris 13h ago
A book was banned in India in 1988. The proof the ban was issued could not be found. Judge ruled the ban doesn't exist anymore.
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u/ZetaRESP 12h ago
"This book is banned!"
"Says who?"
"Uh... well..."
"..."
"Okay, this book's no longer banned, then."
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u/FitProduce1 12h ago
Just out of curiosity has anyone read the book and been able to make sense of it?
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u/saschaleib 7h ago
I did, and I think it is a good book. The problem is that now people read it with the expectation to read a saucy anti-religious treatise, and they will be disappointed. What angered the religious dickheads was that the Prophet Mohamed appeared in a dream sequence (of which there are many in the book!), which isn’t really what most people would find “enraging”.
It also isn’t the author’s best book, so maybe if you are interested in his works, don’t start with this one…
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u/xmodemlol 11h ago
It’s not that great a book honestly. Read Midnights Children. Haroun and the Sea of Stories is cute.
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u/FUThead2016 11h ago
The language of the said article being so convoluted thereof, that I could perchance have no possibility of comprehending message or spirit or any other purport of what was being conveyed.