This was not a judgment on whether astrology in India is a science or pseudoscience as the highly dubious Skyscript website out of the UK would have us believe. Regardless of our position on the subject of astrology, a website which exists for the sole purpose of promoting astrology can not be considered a viable source for factual information. The biased slant in favor of astrology by Skyscript taints the article to create an impression and opinions which are not part of the legal case:
A Public Interest Litigation was filed by NGO Janhit Manch in an attempt to get a clause put into astrology advertisements stating that they were not "tried and tested" and should be in accordance with the Drugs and Magical Remedies Act (Objectionable Advertisements) of 1954.
This was the entire issue.
The Union government position filed by Dr R Ramakrishna, deputy drug controller (India), west zone, was that astrology practice in India was 4000 years old and therefore exempt from the 1954 requirement. The crux of the defense was that the 1954 Act applied to Drugs and magic but not to astrology et al.
This is what the court upheld.
Highly important to the case, yet left out of Skyscript's report, and the most probably swaying fact in the case was that Bharat Mehta, Advocate for Maharashtra government, submitted an affidavit filed by the Food and Drugs Administration department which said that necessary action is being taken against the guilty under the Drugs and Megical Remedies Act. The guilty meaning those persons who are overtly fraudulent in their astrology practices.
Mehta did not elaborate on how one astrologer is deemed to be more fraudulent than another astrologer.
Regardless of ones views regarding astrology, listening to Skyscript cover the Indian case is much like listening to the National Enquirer cover a traffic ticket court case - highly sensationalized. I would assume that anyone who is getting their news from a source such as Skyscript already has an opinion regarding whether astrology is a science or not.
Contrary to what some others post here, there is no unified global definition or agreement on what the word science means. Resources define science this way:
1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws.
2.systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
3. any of the branches of natural or physical science.
4. systematized knowledge in general.
5. knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study.
6. a particular branch of knowledge.
7. skill, especially reflecting a precise application of facts or principles; proficiency.
Astrology has an established system of knowledge but it does not deal with facts and truths. The results are inconsistent and not testable. It does not apply to the physical world and is therefore not a natural or physical science.
The fact is that the definition of science is broad, therefore one could argue that astrology is a science. But not in the traditional sense. To call astrology a science, we must be open to metaphysics as a science and the study of emotion and personality being predicated upon the position of planets and moons and stars in the sky. Regardless of how many of those predictions are right or wrong.
I personally find it humorous that those who adamantly object to calling astrology a science are those who are so willing to accept conjectures and hypotheses of theoretical physicists as a work of science. The multiple universes and white holes and the travel through a black hole to a new dimension are no more valid than the practice of astrology. I challenge anyone here to come forth and draw the line. A true definition of science cannot toss out one form of magic while at the same time blindly accepting others. For we then become not scientists but hypocrites. We become nothing more than a shaman who picks and chooses his sources of magic.