NEW DELHI — The decadeslong ban of Salman Rushdie's “The Satanic Verses” in his native India is now in doubt — not because of a change of heart more than two years after the author’s near-fatal stabbing, but because of what amounts to some missing paperwork.

Was India’s ban on Salman Rushdie’s novel ’The Satanic Verses’ “unofficial”. Can you find the book in Indian stores now that the Delhi High Court said the Customs notification banning the import of the author’s book has to be presumed to be non-existent.

Excerpts from the book along with an interview of Rushdie ran in an Indian magazine in September 1988, which led to Indian politicians Syed Shahabuddin and Khurshid Alam Khan demanding a ban. On 5 October 1988, the Indian government banned the import of The Satanic Verses via a customs order by the Ministry of Finance.

( MENAFN - Live Mint) Salman Rushdie's controversial 1988 novel The Satanic Verses could become available in India for the first time in decades after a court in Delhi said the government was unable to produce the original notification document that banned imports of the book.

An Indian court lifts a decades-old ban on 'The Satanic Verses' after officials couldn't find the original restriction

Is it legal to import Sir Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in India? This question has been puzzling legal experts since the Delhi High Court suggested this week that the notification banning the novel’s import - issued in 1988 - might no longer be valid,

India's Delhi High Court on Friday lifted the ban on Salman Rushdie's novel 'The Satanic Verses' due to the government's failure to promulgate the ban in 1988. The controversial novel is especially