Why be touchy: SC extends stay on defamation proceedings against Congress MP Tharoor

Noting that people in public life should not be touchy about statements against them, the SC on Friday suggested to a Delhi BJP leader to close the defamation case that he had filed against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor over the his statement comparing PM Narendra Modi to a scorpion.

“Why do you want to be touchy about all this? Let us close it. That way, administrators, political personalities and judges form the same group…they have sufficiently thicker skin,” a Bench of Justice MM Sundresh and Justice N Kotiswar Singh told Delhi BJP leader Rajiv Babbar.

However, senior counsel Pinky Anand, representing Babbar, said the matter will have to be heard anyway.

Extending the September 10, 2024, interim order staying the criminal defamation proceedings against Tharoor, the Bench said the matter will be heard on some other day.

Earlier, the Bench had termed Tharoor’s ‘Scorpion on Shivling’ remark against PM Modi a metaphor and issued notice to the complainant on Tharoor’s petition challenging the HC’s order.

Tharoor’s counsel had submitted that he had only quoted from a 2012 article in the Caravan Magazine that contained the alleged remark attributed to an unnamed RSS leader comparing Modi to “a scorpion sitting on a Shivling”.