Jaswant moves SC against Guj govt ban on his book

Expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jaswant Singh today moved the Supreme Court challenging the Gujarat government's ban on his book on Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

Singh, along with a representative of Rupa and Co, publisher of the book ‘Jinnah — India, Partition, Independence’, filed a petition in the apex court against the ban imposed by the Narendra Modi government on August 19, two days after the book's launch.

The petition said that the Gujarat government notification banning his book had no mention of the content which called for action and added that the ban was imposed without anyone reading the book.

While imposing the ban, hours after Singh was expelled from the party, the state government had alleged that it had defamed the image of the country's first Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel by “questioning his patriotic spirit”.

However, Singh said that the step amounted to “banning thinking” and likened it to the one taken against noted author Salman Rushdie for his controversial work ‘Satanic Verses’.