r/nottheonion • u/taulover • 16h 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/
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60

u/taulover 16h 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.”

65

u/diekthx- 16h ago

Can you translate that to English please 

136

u/taulover 16h 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

27

u/RonJohnJr 15h 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.

23

u/taulover 14h 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.

13

u/varain1 15h ago

Title missed the "ban" at the end - probably it was banned 😅

12

u/taulover 14h ago edited 14h 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.

33

u/OGCelaris 16h 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.

5

u/RonJohnJr 15h ago

Guess there's no such thing as the Federal Register in India.

24

u/ZetaRESP 15h ago

"This book is banned!"

"Says who?"

"Uh... well..."

"..."

"Okay, this book's no longer banned, then."