The Supreme Court of India on Thursday imposed a one-year rigorous imprisonment sentence on Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu in a 1988 road rage case.
A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and S K Kaul allowed the review plea filed by the victim’s family on the sentence awarded to Sidhu, reported PTI.
Although, the Punjab and Haryana High Court in May 2018 had held Sidhu guilty of the offence of ‘voluntarily causing hurt’ to a 65-year-old in May 2018 and it spared him a jail term and imposed a fine of Rs 1,000.
On May 15, 2018, and SC bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Kaul, however, set this aside and instead held Navjot Singh Sidhu guilty of the offence under section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and imposed only the fine.
The victim’s family reviewed the case and its judgement and said that there was an “error apparent on the face of the record” in the judgement holding him guilty only for causing hurt.
The incident dates back to December 27, 1988, when, according to the prosecution, Navjot Singh Sidhu and his friend Rupinder Sandhu were in a vehicle and had an altercation with Gurnam Singh, when he asked them to give way. Police claimed that Singh was beaten up by Sidhu, who later fled the scene. The victim was taken to a hospital, where he was declared dead.
Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sandhu were acquitted by the trial court in September 1999. But the High Court reversed this in December 2006.
Later, the duo challenged this in the Supreme Court. In 2007, the SC stayed the conviction pending a hearing on the appeal filed by Navjot Singh Sidhu and gave him bail.
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