A Delhi court has issued a bailable warrant against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in a defamation complaint filed against him for his "scorpion" remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Metropolitan Magistrate Naveen Kumar Kashyap noted that Tharoor and/or his counsel were not present during the hearing.
The court issued a bailable warrant to the sum of Rs 5,000 against him for his presence on November 27.
It also found that neither complainant BJP leader, Rajeev Babbar nor his main counsel was present during the hearing on Monday, so slapped him with Rs 500 as cost.
Tharoor had courted controversy with his remarks at Bengaluru Literature Festival last year that an unnamed RSS leader had compared Modi as "a scorpion sitting on a Shivling".
Babbar had claimed his religious sentiments were hurt with the remarks, which were "intolerable abuse" and "absolute vilification".
(Published 12 November 2019, 08:37 IST)
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