Supreme Court rejects plea to ban Salman Rushdie's 'The Satanic Verses'

The Supreme Court on September 25 turned down a petition seeking a ban on Salman Rushdie’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses, effectively upholding a 2022 Delhi High Court ruling.

The bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta noted that the plea essentially challenged the high court’s order, which had closed proceedings on a petition questioning the Rajiv Gandhi government’s 1988 decision to prohibit the import of the book.

The high court had said the relevant government notification could not be produced and therefore had to be presumed nonexistent.

Advocate Chand Qureshi, representing the petitioners, argued that the book remained accessible because of the high court’s judgment. The Supreme Court dismissed the plea, signalling no change in the legal status of the novel in India.

The book, which won the Booker Prize, was originally banned for law-and-order reasons after it sparked widespread protests among Muslim communities worldwide, who viewed its content as blasphemous. (With inputs from PTI)