The Delhi High Court on Thursday refused to quash a criminal defamation case against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor for his 2018 remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bar and Bench reported.
Tharoor represents the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat in Kerala.
Justice Anup Kumar Mendiratta vacated its interim order from October 2020 that stayed the proceedings. He ordered the parties in the matter to appear before the trial court on September 10. “No grounds are made for quashing the proceedings at this stage,” Mendiratta said.
In 2018, while speaking at the Bangalore Literature Festival, Tharoor quoted a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh functionary to compare the prime minister with a scorpion.
The RSS, a Hindutva group, is the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Following this, BJP leader Rajiv Babbar filed a complaint against Tharoor. He claimed that the Congress MP had hurt the sentiments of the devotees of the Hindu deity Shiva.
A complaint was registered under Indian Penal Code sections pertaining to defamation (499) and punishment for such complaints (500), the Hindustan Times reported.
In 2019, Tharoor attributed the quote to BJP leader Gordhan Zadaphia and said that the statement had been in the public domain for several years.
“Wonder if BJP would like to ask a judge to summon their own UP-in-charge, Gordhan Zadaphia, for the remark I am now being prosecuted for quoting?” Tharoor had posted on the social media platform X, then called Twitter. “Absurd to be pursued by the BJP for quoting words that have been in the public domain for over 7yrs (sic), without any previous legal action.”
The Congress MP moved the High Court seeking to set aside the 2019 order of the trial court that summoned him as an accused and to quash the complaint.
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