SC extends stay on defamation case against Tharoor over 'scorpion' remark

New Delhi, Aug 1 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended its stay on trial court proceedings in a defamation case filed against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor over his "scorpion on a Shivling" remark, allegedly at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and N.K. Singh was dealing with Tharoor’s special leave petition (SLP) challenging the Delhi High Court’s refusal to quash the criminal defamation case filed by BJP leader Rajiv Babbar.

After Tharoor’s lawyer sought an adjournment, the counsel for the complainant, Babbar, urged the apex court to list the matter on a non-miscellaneous day.

To this, the Justice Sundresh-led Bench responded: "What non-miscellaneous day? Why do you want to be so touchy about all this? Let us close all this!" and adjourned the hearing.

In September last year, a bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy (now retired) and R. Mahadevan ordered an interim stay on trial proceedings in the defamation case, saying that the metaphor is capable of being understood in different ways.

"Eventually, it's a metaphor. We have tried to understand... the metaphor referred to the invincibility of the person that is being spoken about, perhaps. Can the metaphor be not understood as something pointing towards the invincibility of the person?" the Justice Roy-led Bench had then observed.

The Supreme Court had taken note of the submission that "none had a grievance to the article and the uttered sentence, as published in ‘The Caravan’ magazine".

Earlier, the Delhi High Court had dismissed Tharoor's plea, vacated its interim stay on the trial court proceedings, and directed the parties to appear before the trial court on September 10.

Babbar instituted the case against Tharoor over the latter's 'scorpion' remark vis-a-vis PM Modi made in 2018 at the Bengaluru Literature Festival. In his complaint, Babbar alleged that his religious sentiments were hurt by Tharoor's statement. The BJP leader claimed that the senior Congress leader completely disregarded the sentiments of crores of Shiva devotees by insulting their religious beliefs and filed a complaint under Sections 499 and 500 of the now-repealed Indian Penal Code (IPC).

--IANS

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