New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday extended by four weeks the stay on the trial court proceedings against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in a defamation case filed for his alleged "scorpion on Shivling" remark targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The matter came up before a bench comprising justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti. The bench said it would grant four weeks to Delhi police and the complainant to file their responses on a plea filed by Tharoor. "The interim order (of stay on the defamation proceedings) to continue," said the bench.
On September 10, the apex court stayed the trial proceedings against the senior Congress leader in a defamation case in connection with a 2018 remark allegedly comparing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a scorpion.
Tharoor moved the apex court against the Delhi High Court order of August 29, whereby his plea for quashing the defamation case was rejected.
Tharoor’s counsel had submitted that his client merely quoted from an article published by a news magazine in 2012 which contained an alleged remark by an unnamed RSS leader comparing Narendra Modi to "a scorpion sitting on a Shivling".
He contended that Tharoor while speaking at the Bangalore Literature Festival in 2018, quoted this expression and termed it an "extraordinarily striking metaphor". The counsel submitted that the person quoted in a news magazine article repeated the same statement in a video on a news channel later.
The counsel argued that the complaint filed by BJP leader Rajeev Babbar did not make either the magazine or the person who made the original quote as accused.
The bench had noted that it is eventually a metaphor, which indicates the invincibility of the person, and asked, can't this metaphor be understood as pointing out to the invincibility of the person? The bench orally observed why would somebody object to a metaphor. After hearing submissions, the apex court issued a notice returnable in four weeks.
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