Road rage: SC to review verdict against Sidhu
NEWDELHI: Fresh trouble appears to be brewing for cricketerturned-politician and Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu.
The Supreme Court has agreed to entertain a petition seeking a review of its May 16 verdict that let off Sidhu with ₹1,000 fine in a 1988 road rage case in which one person died.
A bench of justices AM Khanwilkar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul issued notice to Sidhu on Tuesday on the petition filed by the victim’s family.
The formal order, uploaded on the SC website on Wednesday, said the notice was restricted to the quantum of sentencing.
Sidhu refused to comment on the order.
The apex court’s May 16 verdict, which said there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove harsher charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against him, brought relief to Sidhu as it enabled him to continue as a minister in the Amarinder Singh-led Congress government in Punjab.
“I am disappointed, but the family has accepted the decision as God’s will” was how Narvedinder Singh, son of Gurnam Singh, who died after a scuffle with Sidhu, had reacted after the Supreme Court spared Sidhu from jail. A bench of justices J Chelameswar (since retired) and Kaul had set aside a Punjab and Haryana high court verdict convicting Sidhu of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and awarding him three years’ jail. After examining all evidence, including medical records, the top court concluded that Sidhu had been wrongly convicted of the charge. The former cricketer was, however, punished under section 323 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for voluntary causing hurt. A person found guilty under section 323 may be punished with imprisonment of either a term that may extend to one year, or a fine that may extend to ₹1,000, or both; the top court let Sidhu go after ordering him to pay the fine.
The court noted the case was more than 30 years old and that there had been no past enmity between the accused and the victim. According to the prosecution, Sidhu and his friend Rupinder Singh Sandhu were in a Gypsy parked in the middle of a road near the Sheranwala gate crossing in Patiala on December 27, 1988, when the victim and two others were on their way to the bank to withdraw money.
When they reached the crossing, it was alleged, Gurnam Singh, driving a Maruti car, found the Gypsy in the middle of the road and asked the occupants, Sidhu and Sandhu, to remove it.
This led to heated exchanges. Sidhu was acquitted of the murder charges by the trial court in September 1999. However, the high court had reversed the verdict and held Sidhu and Sandhu guilty under Section 304 (II) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC in December 2006. It had sentenced them to three years in jail and imposed a fine of ₹1 lakh each on the convicts.in 2007, the SC stayed the conviction of Sidhu and Sandhu in the case, paving the way for him to contest the bypoll for the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat.
(With agency imputs)