Supreme Court Tuesday stayed proceedings against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in a criminal defamation case filed against him in 2018 for his “scorpion sitting on a Shivling” remark about PM Modi. A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and R Mahadevan granted interim relief to Tharoor who approached the apex court after Delhi HC rejected his plea for quashing proceedings against him in the case.
The bench observed that the phrase used by Tharoor is a metaphor which can be interpreted in several ways. “It is a metaphor. The metaphor would refer to the invincibility of the person who is spoken about. Can the metaphor not be understood as pointing out the invincibility of the person?” the court asked.
Appearing for Tharoor, advocate Md Ali Khan, told SC that the MP, while speaking at Bangalore Literature Festival in 2018, had just quoted from an article published in The Caravan magazine in 2012, which contained the same remark made by an unnamed RSS functionary. SC also raised a question on why somebody should object to this. BJP member Rajeev Babbar had filed a complaint alleging that his religious sentiments and the faith of millions of Shiva devotees were hurt by Tharoor’s comment.
The bench observed that the phrase used by Tharoor is a metaphor which can be interpreted in several ways. “It is a metaphor. The metaphor would refer to the invincibility of the person who is spoken about. Can the metaphor not be understood as pointing out the invincibility of the person?” the court asked.
Appearing for Tharoor, advocate Md Ali Khan, told SC that the MP, while speaking at Bangalore Literature Festival in 2018, had just quoted from an article published in The Caravan magazine in 2012, which contained the same remark made by an unnamed RSS functionary. SC also raised a question on why somebody should object to this. BJP member Rajeev Babbar had filed a complaint alleging that his religious sentiments and the faith of millions of Shiva devotees were hurt by Tharoor’s comment.