Forfeiture Of 25 Books: HC Full Bench to hear batch of pleas on Monday

Srinagar, Oct 11: A three-judge Full Bench of the High Court of J&K and Ladakh is scheduled to hear on Monday a batch of pleas challenging the government's notification that declared 25 books as "forfeited" in Jammu and Kashmir.

The government forfeited 25 books on Kashmir’s political and social history for allegedly promoting false narratives and secessionism under Section 98 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) 2023 on August 5.

The supplementary cause list issued by the High Court’s Registry on Saturday mentions the related pleas to come up before the bench headed by Chief Justice Arun Palli and comprising Justice Rajnesh Oswal and Justice Shahzad Azeem.

The pleas have been filed by Shakir Shabir, Swastik Singh, David Devadas, CPI(M) leader Muhammad Yousuf Tarigami and Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak and others.

The petition filed by Kak and others, including Dr Sumantra Bose, whose two books have been forfeited, author Dr Radha Kumar, and former Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, has invoked Section 99 of the BNSS to set aside the order of forfeiture.

“The conspectus of the 25 books pertains largely to the socio-political life of Kashmir and the myriad political struggles interwoven into the cultural history of the valley. These books, most of which are works of academia, serve as records in the discipline of history,” the petition said.

The plea underscores that the ban order contains mere broad statements, without elaborating on how the contents of the books impact national security or honest narratives. The forfeiture order did not detail how the 25 books were identified as secessionist, according to the plea.

“It is settled law that an administrative or quasi-judicial order having civil consequences must disclose reasons which must form part of the order itself, reasons cannot be supplied at a later stage,” the petition said.

The petition underlines that the J&K administration’s “failure” to identify and incorporate the specific contents of the books, or even to refer to them in passing interim the order was a “fatal illegality which is not curable at this stage”.

The petition contends that the notification is arbitrary, overly broad, and lacks reasoning, failing to meet the legal standards of Section 98 BNSS. It further states that the government does not specify any portions of the books that allegedly promote secessionism or provide a reasoned basis for forfeiture.

The petition contends that the “procedural safeguards envisaged by the BNSS in requiring reasons to be incorporated in the order cannot be short-circuited by administrative verbosity masquerading as reasons”.

“The order merely reproduces the opinion of the State government without elucidating the grounds for forming the opinion, as is mandated by law,” it pleads.

The petitioner seeks the High Court’s intervention to uphold the academic discipline of history and literature as well as to ensure that the right to know of the people, as part of the freedom of speech and expression, was not trampled upon by administrative overreach.

The books include political commentaries and historical accounts such as The Kashmir Dispute 1947-2012 by noted constitutional expert Noorani, Kashmir at the Crossroads and Contested Lands by Sumantra Bose, In Search of a Future: The Kashmir Story by David Devadas, Roy’s Azadi and A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370 by journalist Anuradha Bhasin.