Explain Kashmir book ban, HC tells LG admin, Centre

SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir precocious tribunal has fixed the Union Territory medication and the Centre 3 months to respond to petitions challenging a prohibition connected 25 Kashmir-related books, an authoritative successful the further advocate-general’s (AG) bureau said.The prohibition was clamped by the location section nether lieutenant-governor (LG) Manoj Sinha connected Aug 5 this twelvemonth connected the sixth day of abrogation of Article 370, with the bid claiming the books promoted a “false narrative” and “secessionism”. The elected govt of CM Omar Abdullah is not a enactment to the lawsuit arsenic it did not contented the order.The HC has constituted a three-judge afloat seat to perceive petitions challenging the barroom connected books, including Azadi by Booker Prize victor Arundhati Roy.

The HC has directed the LG Sinha-headed medication and the Centre to record replies by Feb 11, 2026. UT authorities are expected to explicate the grounds for prohibiting the books, galore of which were seized successful constabulary raids connected shops.The petitions, filed by writer David Devadas, Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami of CPI(M), retired Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak, advocator Shakir Shabir and others, contend that the prohibition violates law guarantees of escaped speech.

They person challenged the location department’s notification ordering forfeiture of specified books nether Section 95 of CrPC.The books see Kashmir: The Case for Freedom by Tariq Ali and Pankaj Mishra; Confronting Terrorism by Stephen P. Cohen, Independent Kashmir by Christopher Snedden, Between Democracy and Nation by Seema Kazi, Contested Lands by Sumantra Bose, In Search of a Future by writer and writer David Devdas, A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370 by Anuradha Bhasin and Colonizing Kashmir by Hafsa Kanjwal.The location department’s prohibition bid cited “credible intelligence” that a important operator down younker information successful unit and coercion was “systematic dissemination of mendacious narratives and secessionist literature, often disguised arsenic humanities oregon governmental commentary”.