Supreme Court stays defamation case against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has stayed trial court proceedings in a criminal defamation case against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor over a "scorpion sitting on a Shivling" remark made about Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018.

A bench comprising justices Hrishikesh Roy and R Mahadevan noted that the remark by Tharoor was not his original statement but was first made by another person in an article published in a magazine in 2012.

"Eventually, it is a metaphor. The metaphor would refer to the invincibility of the person who is spoken about. Can the metaphor not be understood as pointing out the invincibility of the person," justice Roy verbally asked.


When the complainant's counsel responded that the remark can be perceived as "can't live with, can't live without", justice Roy wondered "I don't know why somebody has taken objection to this". The judge said a metaphor is capable of being understood in many ways.

The development took place during the hearing of Tharoor's challenge to a Delhi High Court order in which his plea for quashing the defamation case was rejected. Aggrieved, Tharoor moved SC.