A Thiruvananthapuram court on Saturday issued an arrest warrant against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor after he failed to appear for a hearing connected to a book of his published in 1989.
The Great Indian Novel is a satirical book based on the Mahabharatha epic. The complainant has alleged that Tharoor’s novel was defamatory about women of the Nair caste, NDTV reported. The arrest warrant was issued by the Thiruvananthapuram Chief Judicial First Class Magistrate after Tharoor and his lawyer failed to appear in court on Saturday in the case’s first hearing.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP’s office said they had not received any summons with the date of the hearing mentioned.
“Our lawyer had already brought it to the notice of the court that the date was not specified [in the summons],” NDTV quoted his office as saying. “Acknowledging our side, the court had said that they would issue fresh summons with the date.”
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