Indian High Court Rules Astrology is a Science

By abourque on February 8th, 2011

The Bombay High Court is the High Court of India

EDIT: An Indian Astrologer website has linked to this post to attempt to justify themselves through us. I have edited the post to to more accurately reflect that Astrology is not scientifically provable and in fact is not real. Also anyone that would charge fees for such a service I would consider to be committing fraud.

The Bombay High Court has ruled that Astrology is a science and that real scientists have to accept them as their colleagues.

The case was brought to the Court by Janhit Manch, a campaign group which sought a ruling against practitioners of “tantric” black magic and “fake” astrologers. They argued that what they do should be phohibited, citing India’s Drugs and Magical Remedies Act of 1954, which bans false claims in advertisements.

Janhit Manch is:

A leading judicial activist NGO of the country, founded by Bhagvanji Raiyani in 2002, has filed about 55 Public Interest Litigations in the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court.

…doing [our] bit to salvage the deteriorating conditions of the country, work as watchdog agencies and catalysts between authorities and public.

The decision is based on an affidavit by Dr R Ramakrishna, a government deputy drug controller, who said: “The Act does not cover astrology and related sciences. Astrology is a trusted science and is being practised for over 4000 years.”

The entire basis of the ruling is that Astrology is a science and therefore not magical and does not fall under the Act’s jurisdiction. Which suggests that science does not have to be proven to work while magic does. This is just another step that India is taking backwards away from reason and intelligence.

Central Drugs Standard Control Organization Building

Central Drugs Standard Control Organization Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India

You can see a slide show of India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organization here.

Update: DrJoe is an awesome contributor and has found the court case! The ruling has not been uploaded yet but you can find the case here: Reg. #PIL/3/2010

Update 2: The judgment has been uploaded. PIL14809030211