The Bombay High Court dismissed a public interest litigation by an NGO seeking a ban on astrology and some other disciplines on March20, 2011. The Court said it could not direct the government to enact a legislation to such effect. A Mumbai based NGO, as usual starving for publicity, had filed a PIL saying astrology and other disciplines, that are often times broadly but wrongly clubbed with astrology, had no scientific basis and the government should be directed to enact a legislation banning such subjects. It is not known on what basis these self-styled rationalists claim astrology has no scientific basis. It is obvious none of its members know even the fundamentals of astrology or of science. Any true scientific mind, that is, a mind shorn of prejudices and open to facts and bereft of blinkers, cannot but marvel at the systematic methods of astrology and the body of knowledge constituting it and which answers the test of replication. Be that as it may, the Court very clearly stated “It is not open to this court to entertain a petition for directing the government or legislative to enact a legislation”. It is also made clear that advertisements pertaining to astrology did not fall within the purview of the Drugs and Magical Remedies Act 1954, under which the PIL sought the banning of such advertisements.
Earlier also in a judgment related to a similar PIL before it questioning the validity of astrological predictions, the Bombay High Court while dismissing the litigation quoted a Supreme Court judgment saying “it had already considered the issue and ruled that astrology is a science”.
