Defamation complaint filed against Shashi Tharoor in Delhi court

A criminal defamation complaint has been filed against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor before a court here for his alleged "scorpion" remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In his complaint, Delhi BJP leader Rajeev Babbar said his religious sentiments were hurt.

"I am a devotee of Lord Shiva... However, the accused (Tharoor) completely disregarded the sentiments of crores of Shiva's devotees, made the statement which hurt the sentiments of all the Lord Shiva devotees, both in India and outside the country," the complaint said.

"The complainant's religious sentiments were hurt and accused deliberately did this malicious act, intending to outrage religious feeling of Lord Shiva devotees by insulting their religious believes," it said.

The complaint, filed through advocate Neeraj, termed the statement as an "intolerable abuse" and "absolute vilification" of the faith of millions of people.

The complaint was filed under section 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code relating to defamation.

The matter is likely to come up for hearing Saturday.

Tharoor had stoked a fresh controversy on Sunday while speaking at Bangalore Literature Festival, claiming that an unnamed RSS leader had compared Modi to "a scorpion sitting on a Shivling".