'Murder accused' remark: Tharoor sends notice to Prasad

Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor has sent a legal notice to Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, threatening to file a defamation case against him for calling him an accused in a murder case.

Seeking an "unconditional apology" from the minister for making “such an untrue, false and baseless imputations,” the senior Congress leader gave him an ultimatum of 48 hours to avoid facing a defamation case.

In the legal notice to Prasad, Tharoor has accused the Union minister of “purposefully lying” to the public with “culpable malicious intent” to defame him and referred to his statement in which Prasad said that Tharoor is an accused in a case of murder and chargesheeted for the offence of murder.

“Both as a member of the general public who is aware of the current affairs of the country and also as a person who holds the very esteemed post of the Union minister for India, yourself (Prasad) is well aware that Shashi Tharoor is neither chargesheeted for the offence of murder nor he is an accused in a case of murder,” Tharoor's counsel has noted in the legal notice sent to Prasad on Tuesday.

Tharoor shared the copies of his legal notice to Prasad on his Facebook timeline.

“My legal notice to @rsprasad about his false, malicious & defamatory statements against me, which he has still not retracted. When India’s Law Minister falsely invents a murder case against a political opponent, what hope for justice & democracy?” he tweeted on Wednesday.

Tharoor recently landed in a controversy after he cited 'scorpion sitting on Shivalinga' analogy for Prime Minister Narendra Modi while quoting an article published in a magazine in the past.

The Congress lawmaker, who was speaking at an event in Bengaluru on Sunday (October 28), drew a sharp reaction from Prasad over his "scorpion" remarks.

“Tharoor is chargesheeted in a serious allegation of murder. I don't want to give him more respect and prestige by responding to his baseless allegations. But, the larger issue is while Rahul Gandhi claims himself to be a 'Shiv Bhakt', one of his small leaders has almost abused the sanctity of the 'Shiva Linga' and Lord Mahadev by referring to chappal attack through unnamed sources,” the Union minister had told reporters reacting to Tharoor's remark.

The Congress leader's counsel demanded that Prasad should remove the video clip of his statement from his Twitter account along with his tweets.