The Supreme Court will hear Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s defamation plea on Monday

While hearing Tharoor’s plea on September 10, the Supreme Court had stayed the trial court proceedings in the defamation case against the Congressman.

The top court had also asked the Delhi Police and BJP leader Rajiv Babbar, the complainant in the case, to respond to the plea.

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

The congressman has appealed to the Supreme Court against the Supreme Court’s August 29 order refusing to drop the defamation case against him.

During the hearing on September 10, Tharoor’s lawyer told the Supreme Court that the complainant cannot be considered an aggrieved party in the case and members of the political party also cannot be considered an aggrieved party.

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

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

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

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

While refusing to quash the case against Tharoor, the Supreme Court had prima facie said that allegations like Scorpio vs. Shivling against the prime minister were “despicable and unfortunate”.

The Supreme Court, which on October 16, 2020, stayed the criminal proceedings against the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram on defamation charges, quashed the interim order and directed the parties to appear before the court on September 10.

It said that prima facie the remark defames the Prime Minister, the BJP and their office-bearers and members.

The Supreme Court dismissed Tharoor’s application to quash the defamation case pending before the trial court, saying that the judge had sufficient material to summon him under Section 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The Congress leader had sought quashing of the trial court’s April 27, 2019 order summoning him as an accused in the criminal defamation complaint filed by Rajiv Babbar and the November 2, 2018 complaint.

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

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