NEW DELHI (AP) — Decades-long ban Salman Rushdie In its native India, “The Satanic Verses” is now in doubt; This is not because there is a change of heart after more than two years. the writer’s near-fatal stabbing, But because of some missing documents.

Earlier this week, a court in New Delhi closed hearings on a petition filed five years ago challenging the then government’s decision to ban imports of the novel. Allegation of blasphemy, Just days after its release in 1988. In a judgment published on Tuesday, a bench headed by Justice Rekha Palli said the authorities had failed to serve notice of the ban, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

“We have no choice but to assume that no such notice existed,” the judges concluded.

The petitioner, Sandipan Khan, had added that he could not purchase the book, claiming that he could not purchase it due to a notification issued by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs on October 5, 1988, banning the import of the book into India. You can find the notification on any official website or through the authorities. Khan’s lawyer Uddyam Mukherjee said the court’s decision means that as of now there is nothing prohibiting anyone from importing the novel into India.

“But whether that means it will be sold in bookstores — I don’t know, that depends on the publishers or the sellers,” he told The Associated Press.

When reached by phone, many bookstores in the nation’s capital were unaware of the news. An employee of Jain Book Agency in New Delhi stated that they do not know whether this news means that the novel will be available again in stores in India, adding that if this is the case, it may still take time and they need to do it. Hear from the publisher.

“What the decision does is it opens up a potential avenue for the book to be available for sale here,” Mukherjee said, but added that any aggrieved individual, group or government could also appeal the decision.

Rushdie’s literary agent, Andrew Wylie, declined to comment to the AP. Rushdie, who is now a citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States, has yet to comment publicly. He has more than 1 million followers on his X account, where he last posted in September.

Penguin Random House, Rushdie’s US publisher, issued a statement on Friday, calling the decision a “significant new development” and adding that “next steps are being considered.” The author’s publisher in India, Penguin Random House India, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This week’s decision adds a new dimension to Rushdie’s complex relationship with India, where he was born in 1947, just before the country’s independence. He left when he was a child and was living in the UK at the time. Breakthrough novel “Midnight’s Children” The incident, which occurred in 1981 and was satirized in the book, infuriated the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi. After filing a lawsuit alleging that she caused her husband’s death, Rushdie agreed to drop the lawsuit and the case was settled.

When India banned “The Satanic Verses,” Rushdie condemned the action and doubted whether censors had even read the novel. In an open letter to then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, published in The New York Times in 1988, he claimed that the book was “being used as a political football” and called the ban not only “anti-democratic but also opportunistic”. Over the years Rushdie made private trips to India and attended the Jaipur Literary Festival in 2007. But five years later, He canceled his plans to attend the Jaipur meeting because due to security concerns. The festival did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision.

Besides the ban in his own country, “The Satanic Verses” also appeared Fatwa for Rushdie’s death from Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who forced the author into hiding in 1989. It gradually returned to a normal life, especially after Iranian officials announced in 1998 that the government had no plans to implement it. But its relative calm came to an abrupt end in 2022. When he was stabbed multiple times on stage by a young assailant during a literary festival in Western New York. Rushdie survived the attack that left him blind in one eye and wrote about it In the memoir “Knife” finalist this year For the National Book Award.

On Friday, Khan’s lawyer said his client was an avid book reader who was trying to find answers after learning the novel had been banned. He made numerous requests for information to various authorities and tried to obtain the notification for more than a year. Mukherjee said officials told Khan that the incident was not traceable.

“When we realized that there was no hope, we went to court and challenged the notification,” Mukherjee added.

The court also stated that Khan had the legal right to obtain this book. So how does he plan to get it now?

“He doesn’t have a clear answer to this yet; will buy a copy if it becomes available in India,” Mukherjee said. “But since it is no longer illegal to import the book into the country, there is also the potential to purchase the book from international bookstores.”

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Italy reported from New York. Associated Press reporter Chonchui Ngashangva in New Delhi contributed to this report.