The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the defamation proceedings against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor for his 2018 remarks wherein he had cited the purported comment of an RSS functionary that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a “scorpion sitting on a Shivling, you cannot remove him with your hand and you cannot hit it with a chappal either.”

The court observed: “Eventually it is a metaphor, that as I have tried to understand. The metaphor would refer to the invincibility of the person who is spoken of (Modi).”

“Can’t the metaphor not be understood as pointing out the invincibility of the person?” Justice Hrishikesh Roy, heading a bench, orally observed while staying the proceedings until further orders.

The bench, which included Justice R. Mahadevan, stayed the proceedings before the trial court in Delhi, which had summoned Tharoor to appear on September 10 for facing the defamation case filed by BJP leader Rajeev Babbar.

Tharoor had remarked “...And this personality cult has not sat very well with many in the RSS establishment. There’s an extraordinarily striking metaphor expressed by an unnamed RSS source to journalist Vinod Jose of The Caravan (magazine) which I quote here, in which they express their frustration with their inability to curb Mr. Modi, and the man says, ‘Mr. Modi’, he says is like a ‘scorpion sitting on a Shivling; you cannot remove him with your hand, and you cannot hit it with a chappal either’.”

After recording the submissions of the counsel, including the alleged defamatory statement, the SC said: “Issue notice, returnable in four weeks. Further proceeding in pursuant to the impugned judgment is stayed, until the returnable date.”