Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 19: The Supreme Court on Thursday awarded one year’s rigorous imprisonment to Punjab Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu in a 34-year-old fatal road rage case. The cricketer-turned-politician must surrender and serve a year’s “rigorous imprisonment”, the court said.
“Will submit to the majesty of law…,” tweeted the former Punjab Congress chief, 58, who had participated in a protest on fuel prices this morning.
The decision came in a review petition filed by the family of the victim, Gurnam Singh, who died in the road rage incident in 1988. The review petition was filed on the Supreme Court’s May, 2018, verdict in which the retired national lever cricketer-turned-politician was let off with a fine of only Rs 1,000 saying that such roadside brawls were a “very common sight in this country.” A Special Bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul reviewed the apex court’s judgment and sentenced him to one year’s imprisonment on Thursday.
Gurnam Singh had died after a brawl with Sidhu and his friend in 1988. The family had asked for graver charges against Sidhu and a review of a 2018 order of the Supreme Court acquitting him of murder charges and imposing a ₹ 1,000-fine.
On December 27, 1988, Sidhu got into an argument with Gurnam Singh, a resident of Patiala, over a parking spot. Sidhu and his friend, Rupinder Singh Sandhu, allegedly dragged Gurnam Singh out of his car and hit him. He later died in hospital. In 1999, a sessions court in Patiala acquitted Sidhu citing lack of evidence and giving him the benefit of the doubt.
On a petition challenging this verdict, the Punjab and Haryana High court convicted Sidhu in 2006 of culpable homicide and sentenced him to three years in jail. In 2018, Sidhu approached the Supreme Court, which said the case was over 30 years old and Sidhu had not used a weapon. Sidhu was only held guilty of assaulting a senior citizen, spared a jail term and fined ₹ 1,000. The Supreme Court had also acquitted Sidhu’s friend of all charges saying there was no proper evidence he was present at the spot.
The family of the victim, Gurnam Singh, requested the Supreme Court to review its order and consider tougher charges. Sidhu challenged the family’s petition and has ended up with a jail sentence.
Justice Kaul, reading out the judgment, said the court felt, on the basis of the facts placed before it, that it would have to review the judgment in terms of sentence. The Review Bench held that it would serve the ends of justice to sentence Sidhu to a period of one-year rigorous imprisonment in addition to the earlier award of a fine of ₹1,000.
The case had returned to haunt Sidhu after over three decades, especially when the family of the victim upped the ante by filing an application contending that the facts of the case show he was responsible for causing more than hurt but was actually liable for far more grievous offences like culpable homicide or even murder.
Singh’s family had filed for a review of the judgment in 2018 itself. The court had issued a formal notice to Sidhu, represented by senior advocate A.M. Singhvi and advocate Karthik Ashok, specifically on the quantum of sentence, in September 2018.
During the hearing of the case, the court had observed that if the facts ultimately show a different offence, the punishment would also change. Senior advocate Siddarth Luthra, for Gurnam Singh’s family, had said the apex court’s own judgment proved, “the fact of the injury caused to the victim, the fact that the injury was caused ante-mortem, and the fact that it was caused intentionally by the respondent [Sidhu]“.
Minutes after the Supreme Court convicted Sidhu, the deceased’s family said “justice was finally meted” to them.
Narvedinder Singh Suyach, son of the deceased Gurnam Singh, who then was 65, said, “We are grateful to God. It is after 34 years that our family has got justice. We are going to a gurdwara to thank the almighty.”
Narvedinder, who is the only surviving son of the deceased, said, “Everybody has seen how we have fought for justice. We lost our father but justice was denied to us. Finally, it has been delivered.”
