Defamation case: Delhi HC stays bailable warrant against Tharoor

New Delhi, Nov 14: The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the bailable warrant issued against senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in connection with scorpion remark in 2018 regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In October last year, Shashi Tharoor had claimed that an unnamed RSS leader had compared Prime Minister Modi to "a scorpion sitting on a Shivling". He termed it an "extraordinarily striking metaphor".

A Delhi court has issued a bailable warrant against Tharoor in a criminal defamation case filed by BJP leader Rajiv Babbar.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Naveen Kumar Kashyap had issued the warrant against the Congress leader for November 27.

The complaint was filed under sections 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

In 2018, speaking about his book "The Paradoxical Prime Minister" at the Bengaluru Literature Festival, Tharoor asserted that the "personality cult of Prime Minister Modi has not gone down well with the RSS and has been a cause of frustration within its ranks".