The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the trial court proceedings against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in a defamation case regarding his controversial statement ”scorpion on Shivling” allegedly aimed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A notice has been issued to both the Delhi government and the complainant, Rajiv Babar by the bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and R Mahadevan as a response to the case. The notice is supposed to be returned within four weeks.
All about the case
Tharoor had gone to the Supreme Court against a Delhi Court decision dated August 29, which declined to stop the defamation proceedings. The Congress leader has earlier sought to overturn the trial court’s April 27, 2019 order summoning him as accused in the criminal defamation case filed by Babar on November 2, 2018.
A complaint has been filed by Rajiv Babar in the trial court in which it was claimed that his religious sentiments were hurt by Tharoor’s statement. In 2018, Tharoor made a statement in October 2018 that an unidentified Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader had compared Modi to ”a scorpion sitting on a shivling.” Tharoor has made a reference to this as ”an extraordinarily striking metaphor.”
(With PTI inputs)