Former India cricketer and Punjab Congress minister Navjot Singh Sidhu has been acquitted under section 304 (II) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and convicted under section 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) in 1988 road rage case by the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The top court fined Sidhu without any jail term and acquitted the co-accused in the case of all charges.
A bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul pronounced the verdict on a cross-appeal filed by the victim’s family seeking enhancement of the jail term to them. “A1 (Sidhu) is guilty of Section 323 of IPC. Awarded no sentence but fine of Rs 1,000 for the offence. A2 (Rupinder Singh Sandhu) is acquitted,” the bench said.
The two accused in the case are Sidhu, who quit the BJP and joined Congress before the previous Punjab assembly elections and is currently the Tourism Minister of Punjab, and Rupinder Singh Sandhu – who was also convicted and sentenced to three years in jail.
On December 27, 1988, the duo, who were in a Gypsy, got into an argument with Gurnam Singh over parking space in Patiala. Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sandhu had allegedly dragged Gurnam out of his car and dealt him a series of blows, causing Gurnam’s death. When Jaswinder Singh, who was with Gurnam, tried to intervene, Sandhu had also assaulted him.
Sidhu and Sandhu were acquitted by the trial court in September 1999. However, the High Court reversed the decision in December 2006 and held them guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. They challenged this in the Supreme Court which stayed the conviction pending the appeal in 2007.
According to the prosecution, the duo had an altercation with Gurnam near the Sheranwala Gate Crossing when the latter asked them to give way to their car. Police claimed that Gurnam was beaten up by Sidhu, who later fled the crime scene. The victim was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead.
Senior advocate RS Cheema represented Navjot Singh Sidhu and had questioned the evidence brought on record by the prosecution, saying “the most baffling and disturbing issue in the case is what we have on record with regard to the cause of death. The evidence brought on record was obscure, indefinite and also contradictory.” Cheema contended that the medical opinion was “vague.”
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