‘Why So Touchy, Let's Close All This…’, SC To Complainant On Shashi Tharoor's Scorpion Remark On PM Modi

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday extended the stay on 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 M M Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh. The bench passed the order after adjourning the matter on the request of Tharoor's lawyer. The lawyer appearing for the complainant, BJP leader Rajeev Babbar, sought a hearing on a non-miscellaneous day.

"What non-miscellaneous day? Why do you want to be so touchy about all this? Let us close all this," the bench said. After a brief hearing on the matter, the bench scheduled the matter for further hearing on September 15.

Tharoor moved the top court against the Delhi High Court's August 29, 2024, order, which refused to quash the defamation proceedings against him, asking him to appear before the trial court on September 10.

In September last year, the Supreme Court stayed the trial proceedings against the senior Congress leader in the defamation case in connection with a 2018 remark allegedly comparing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a scorpion.

A bench comprising justices Hrishikesh Roy and R Mahadevan had then issued notice on Tharoor’s plea. 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 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 the invincibility of the person? The bench orally observed why somebody would object to a metaphor.

The high court had declined to quash the defamation proceedings against him on a complaint over his alleged "scorpion on Shivling" remarks targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The high court had said that prima facie, imputations like "scorpion on Shivling" against the prime minister are "despicable and deplorable". The complaint against Tharoor was filed by Delhi BJP vice-president Rajiv Babbar.

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