Cartoonist Hemant Malviya, against whom cases have been filed for his caricatures of Lord Shiva, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the RSS, tendered an unconditional apology in the Supreme Court on Tuesday and pledged to forthwith delete the images from social media.

The assurance was given to a bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N.V. Anjaria by senior advocate Vrinda Grover, which was formally recorded by the court. It asked additional solicitor-general K.M. Natraj, appearing for the Madhya Pradesh government, to give his views on the issue.

On July 15, the court had granted anticipatory bail to the cartoonist and indicated that it may pass certain general orders in the matter since there is an increasing trend of people misusing their fundamental right to free speech and expression.

On Tuesday, when the matter came up for hearing, Grover told the bench that in conformity with the earlier order, she has placed the apology both in Hindi and its English translation that may be treated as on record.

"I want to supplement it with a statement that it would be deleted from all social media accounts, although the case pertains to the Facebook post. I will publish this apology on my social media account. I have never been summoned to join the investigation even once, because there is no recovery, there is nothing against me," Grover submitted.

To a query from the bench, Natraj said he had been served with a copy of the apology but wanted Malviya to tender his apology on social media too. "Yes, I have seen. I think let him publish it on all social media. In all the investigation, whatever is going on, he should cooperate," Natraj said. Grover said the apology will be uploaded on Tuesday.

In one of the earlier hearings, the Supreme Court had termed Malviya’s caricatures as “inflammatory” and said that no citizen can abuse the "freedom of speech and expression" in such a manner.