The Delhi High Court has closed the proceedings on a petition challenging the Rajiv Gandhi government's decision to ban the import of Salman Rushdie's controversial novel, "The Satanic Verses", in 1988, saying since authorities have failed to produce the relevant notification, it has to be presumed that it does not exist.
In an order passed on November 5, a bench headed by Justice Rekha Palli observed that the petition, which was pending since 2019, was therefore infructuous and the petitioner would be be entitled to take all actions in respect of the book as available in law.
The Centre banned the import of the Booker Prize-winning author's "The Satanic Verses" for law-and-order reasons in 1988, after Muslims across the world viewed it as blasphemous.