A day after the Supreme Court blasted suspended Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Nupur Sharma for her controversial remarks on Prophet Muhammad, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Saturday called it “oral observation not judgement”.
Rijiju made the remarks on the sidelines of the BJP national executive meeting.
"First of all, as a Law Minister, it is not proper for me to comment on the judgement as well as the observations made by the Supreme Court bench. Even if I do not like the judgement or I have a serious objection to the manner in which the observations are made, I would not like to comment," he was quoted by the news agency ANI as saying.
The minister said he will discuss the issue at the appropriate forum.
"Reactions are coming, I am getting lots of representations and messages to react to this, but we will discuss the issue at the appropriate forum. Interestingly, the remarks that Nupur Sharma was responsible for communal violence across the country, were made in verbal or oral observations and not reflected in the order pronounced by the Supreme Court," he added.
The Supreme Court also said that Ms Sharma and "her loose tongue" has set the entire country on fire and that she is single-handedly responsible for what is happening in the country. She should "apologise to the whole country", the Supreme Court said.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and JB Pardiwala slammed Ms Sharma for her statement, and while referring to the Udaipur incident, in which two men murdered a tailor, said, "her outburst is responsible for an unfortunate incident."
The Supreme Court also declined Ms Sharma's request to transfer to Delhi all the FIRs registered against her across the country for her controversial remarks on the Prophet, and allowed her to withdraw her plea from the court and avail alternate remedies.
