India's top court has suspended an arrest warrant for an artist who enraged Hindu hardliners by painting a nude woman posed in the shape of India.

Maqbool Fida Husain has been living in self-imposed exile in London and the United Arab Emirates because of threats he received after unveiling the painting Mother India last year.

After the ruling on Tuesday, Husain's lawyer, Akhil Sibal, said the painter would return to India.

Husain was quoted in the Indian press as saying he misses his homeland.

"The truth is that I'm missing my country. I'll accept whatever the law decides," he said in an interview before the ruling was handed down.

In February 2006, Husain promised to withdraw the painting, which shows a kneeling woman with the names of the states of India on her body, from a charity auction.

Born in 1915, Husain began his career by painting cinema posters. He was discovered in 1947 when he won first prize in the Bombay Art Society exhibition and he went on to become one of India's most charismatic and famous artists.

In 1967, he won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film festival for his film Through the Eyes of An Artist. His work has been shown at the Tate, at the Royal Academy of Art in London and at galleries in New York and Washington.

Hindu groups had filed several lawsuits against Husain over Mother India, saying it was disrespectful to associate India with nudity.

A court in the northern city of Hardwar issued a warrant for his arrest and ordered his property seized after he did not appear for a hearing on one of the lawsuits.

The Supreme Court in New Delhi stepped in Tuesday to prevent police from seizing Husain's property and ordered the arrest warrant be stopped.

Husain, a Muslim, has seen his work criticized in the past by right-wing Hindus, including some who object to his nude depictions of Hindu gods.

His paintings have been slashed and burned and spray-painted, his films banned and until recently there were obscenity cases against him in courts across India.

The Times of India has called him "a victim of religious bias."