SC to hear Shashi Tharoor’s defamation petition

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday a petition by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor against a Delhi High Court verdict that refused to quash defamation proceedings against him over his alleged “scorpion on Shivling” remark directed at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While hearing Tharoor’s plea on September 10, the apex court had stayed proceedings before a trial court in the defamation case filed against the Congress MP.

The high court had also issued a notice to the Delhi Police and BJP leader Rajiv Babbar, who is the complainant in the case, seeking their responses to the petition.

According to the October 14 list of cases uploaded on the apex court’s website, a bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti is scheduled to hear Tharoor’s plea.

The Congress MP has moved the high court against the August 29 order of the high court which refused to quash the defamation proceedings against him.

During the hearing on September 10, Tharoor’s counsel told the apex court that the complainant cannot be said to be an aggrieved party in the case and the members of the political party also cannot be said to be an aggrieved party .

His lawyer argued that Tharoor’s comment was protected by the immunity clause of the defamation law, which stipulates that any statement made in good faith is not criminal.

The lawyer said Tharoor made a reference to an article published in Caravan magazine six years before the statement was made.

The high court had expressed surprise that in 2012 the statement was not defamatory when the article was originally published.

“Ultimately it is a metaphor. I have tried to understand it. It refers to the invincibility of the person referred to (Modi). I don’t know why anyone has objected here,” Justice Roy had remarked during the hearing .

While refusing to quash the proceedings against Tharoor, the high court had said prima facie that the allegations like ‘scorpion on Shivling’ against the prime minister were ‘minor and deplorable’.

The high court, which on October 16, 2020 stayed the criminal proceedings against the Thiruvananthapuram Congress MP in the defamation suit, set aside the interim order and directed the parties to appear before the court of first instance on September 10.

He had said that prima facie, the comment defamed the Prime Minister, the BJP as well as its office bearers and members.

Dismissing Tharoor’s plea seeking quashing of the defamation proceedings pending before the trial court, the high court had said there was enough material before the judicial magistrate to summon him under Article 500 ( punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The Congress leader had sought to set aside the trial court’s April 27, 2019 order naming him as an accused in the criminal defamation suit filed by Rajiv Babbar, as well as the November 2 suit 2018

The criminal complaint was filed against Tharoor in the trial court by Babbar, who claimed that his religious sentiments were hurt by the Congress leader’s statement.

In October 2018, Tharoor claimed that an unnamed RSS leader had compared Modi to “a scorpion sitting on a Shivling”. The Congress leader had said it was an “extraordinarily striking metaphor”.