Shashi Tharoor has been marketing his book ‘Why I am Hindu’ very actively on social media. He is quite vocal about his interpretation of his version of Hinduism and argues why RSS and his political counterparts are not true representatives of Hinduism.
However, a controversial line in a court judgement has raised questions on his claim of being a ‘Hindu’. In the judgment [pdf] delivered by High Court of Kerala in Ernakulam on 27th May 2015, the judge writes (emphasis added) :
1 st respondent (Shashi Tharoor) denies all the allegations in the petition. He asserts that he has made true and correct disclosure of all the assets which belongs to him as on the relevant date and the allegations to the contrary are untrue. He disowns any assets having been inherited by him consequent on the death of his wife. He also would point out that as on the date of filing of nomination, he had no spouse and therefore the question of disclosure at that point of time did not arise. He disputes that he and his wife late Sunanda Pushkar are Hindus.
The snapshot of the controversial line and link to the judgement were shared on Twitter by Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy (who shared it in November last year) and columnist Anand Ranganathan (who shared it earlier today):
This made my day. Man who told the court he is NOT a Hindu now writes a book titled Why I AM a Hindu. (h/t @prakash_venkit) https://t.co/Sqb1fyed4u pic.twitter.com/Mc53FeUvxv
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) February 26, 2018
However Shashi Tharoor retaliated by threatening columnist Anand Ranganathan, who is also a scientist, with a court case. He said that it was a ‘complete lie’ and threatened the Anand with a court case if he did not withdraw the ‘fake document’.
But Anand Ranganathan stumped Tharoor by citing the original link to the court order that is uploaded on the website of the Kerala High Court. He also demanded an apology from Shashi Tharoor.
Here you go, @ShashiTharoor. Here is the original High Court of Kerala (https://t.co/yKL6PgloXi) document. Justice Bhavadasan’s words: That you dispute the fact that you are a Hindu.
Now if you don’t apologise to me, I might have to sue YOU.https://t.co/lIU7UxWtPp pic.twitter.com/2IYx9JFAp5
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) February 26, 2018
Meanwhile, Ananth Krishna Subhalakshmy, a law student has also pointed out that the an argument submitted to a constitutional court place on record cannot be disputed.
You can’t dispute an argument that you submitted to a constitutional court and which has been placed on record through a judgement. If Shashi Tharoor is willing, let him submit the original affidavit that he filed in the case in public domain.
— Ananth Krishna Subhalaksmy Chittayal (@Ananth_Krishna_) February 26, 2018
He further added that all submissions made by the advocate have to be made with the knowledge for the client and the affidavit Tharoor submitted has to have been attested by him. Therefore, legally Tharoor has assented to the submission. Ananth added that this was a case where Tharoor’s election as MP could have been struck down for misrepresentation on his affidavit.
It is also important to note that Arvind Kejriwal could not dissociate himself from arguments made by Ram Jethmalani in a defamation case filed by Arun Jaitley.
It remains to be seen whether Shashi Tharoor will clarify about his religion and his arguments in public domain. Does he really believe that someone has uploaded a ‘fake document’ on a High Court website, or is he accusing judges of attributing to him arguments he never made?
Tharoor had not clarified by the time this report was published.
UPDATE: Shashi Tharoor has conceded that the document or the High Court judgment was indeed not ‘fake’ (though he didn’t apologise to Anand Ranganathan for falsely accusing him of producing ‘fake document’). He claimed that there must have been a ‘typographical error’ in the court order or the judge put that line by “accidental slip”.
