SC to re-examine Sidhu's sentence in road rage case

The Supreme Court has decided to re-examine its judgement, sparing Punjab Congress leader and cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu with just a Rs 1,000 fine in a road rage incident, where a 65-year-old man had died after receiving a fist blow in 1988.

A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul issued a notice to Sidhu only on the issue of quantum of sentence.

The top court on Tuesday granted permission to file a review petition against the May 15 judgement.

With this, the review petition would now be considered in an open court.

On May 15, a bench of Justices J Chelameswar (since retired) and Kaul had convicted Sidhu of a milder offence of causing voluntarily hurt under Section 323 of the IPC.

The punishment for the offence carried a maximum jail term of up to one year, or with fine, which may extend to Rs 1,000, or with both.

The court merely imposed a Rs 1,000 fine on Sidhu.

The court had then looked into circumstances like the incident being 30-year-old, there being no past enmity between the accused and deceased, Gurnam Singh, and no weapon being used by Sidhu, to arrive at its conclusion.

The court had then declined to consider a plea made on behalf of complainant Jaswinder Singh, who accompanied the deceased in the car on that fateful day on December 27, 1988, in Patiala, that the state went out of its way to shield the accused because of his celebrity status.

It also rejected a plea to consider a CD of an interview of Sidhu reportedly proving his guilt.

The court had then set aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court judgement on an appeal filed by Sidhu and his co-accused Rupinder Singh Sandhu.

The high court had convicted them of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, reversing their acquittal by the trial court.