Supreme Court reserves verdict on plea to enhance Navjot Sidhu's sentence in road rage case

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 25

The Supreme Court on Friday reserved its verdict on a petition seeking review of its order letting off PCC ex-chief Navjot Singh Sidhu with a fine of Rs 1,000 in the 1988 road rage case in which a man had died.

Acquitted in 1999

• Sidhu was initially tried for murder but the trial court acquitted him in Sept 1999.
• However, the Punjab and Haryana HC reversed the verdict and held him guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and gave him a three-year sentence.
• But the top court in its May 15, 2018, verdict let him off by asking him to pay Rs1,000 fine

A Bench led by Justice AM Khanwilkar reserved the verdict hearing arguments from senior advocate AM Singhvi, representing Sidhu and senior counsel Siddharth Luthra for review petitioner.

Describing it as an extraordinary case, Singhvi submitted that the Sidhu didn’t have any intention to kill, no personal enmity, no motive, no violation of bail conditions and the top court had even suspended his conviction to enable him contest polls after he resigned following his conviction.

He urged the Bench not to enhance the sentence, saying the top court doesn’t interfere with the sentence, except in death penalty cases of “rarest of the rare” category.

Luthra, however, said, it didn’t matter if there was no intention to cause death. The intention to cause an injury of a kind that was sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature was sufficient to attract a higher punishment, he added.

The petitioner has sought a review of the Supreme Court’s 2018 order letting off Sidhu with a fine of Rs 1,000 in the 1988 road rage case in which one Gurnam Singh had died. Sidhu was acquitted of homicide charges May 15, 2018, by the top court but convicted of voluntarily causing hurt to the deceased and ordered to pay a fine of Rs 1,000. The Supreme Court had on September 12, 2018, agreed to consider a petition seeking review of its May 15, 2018, order.

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