SC to deliver judgement on Navjot Singh Sidhu road rage case tomorrow

Chandigarh, May 18: The Supreme Court is set to deliver judgment on the review petition in a three-decade-old road rage case against Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu. The Congress leader was then let off with a fine of Rs 1,000.

The petition was filed by the victim's family and demanded the former Punjab Congress chief be charged with a more serious offence.

The apex court had on May 15, 2018, set aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court order convicting Sidhu of culpable homicide and awarding him a three-year jail term in the case, but had held him guilty of causing hurt to a senior citizen.

Though the top court had held Sidhu guilty of the offence of "voluntarily causing hurt" to a 65-year-old man, it spared him of a jail term and imposed a fine of Rs 1,000.

Section 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code entails a maximum jail term of up to one year or with a fine which may extend to Rs 1,000 or both.

Later in September 2018, the apex court had agreed to examine a review petition filed by the family members of the deceased and issued notice to Sidhu on it.

According to the prosecution, Sidhu and 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 Rs one lakh each on them.

The apex court while allowing the appeals of Sidhu and Sandhu had said the medical evidence was "absolutely uncertain" regarding the cause of death of victim Gurnam Singh.

In 2007, the apex court had stayed the conviction of Sidhu and Sandhu in the case.