THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Chief Judicial Magistrate here on Saturday served a summons to Union Minister of Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad to appear before the court in a defamation petition filed by MP Shashi Tharoor .

The summons is to appear before the court in person or through lawyer on May 2. The CJM Prabhash Lal served the summons after taking cognizance of the defamation suit filed by Tharoor in 2018.

Tharoor’s petition was based on remarks made by Ravi Shankar Prasad in October 2018 during a press conference held in Delhi. In the press conference Prasad addressed Tharoor as an accused in a murder case . He then went on to circulate the portion of the video of the press conference where he made the abovementioned remarks through his social media pages on Twitter and Facebook.

Tharoor initially served a legal notice to Prasad demanding an apology, which was rejected. It was following this, Tharoor filed a defamation suit before the CJM here.

Tharoor had personally appeared before the CJM court here twice as part of the case – first to file the defamation suit and then to give his statements when the case was taken up for petitioner’s hearing.

