Friday, 20 May 2022 | PNS | New Delhi
The 1988 road rage case leading to murder of a senior citizen returned to haunt cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu on Thursday as the Supreme Court awarded him one-year rigorous imprisonment. The SC reviewed its earlier judgment on the petition filed by the victim’s family.
Earlier, the SC had in May 2018 held Sidhu guilty of “voluntarily causing hurt” to a 65-year-old man. The court had spared him a jail term and imposed a fine of `1,000.
Despite his conviction, Sidhu can contest elections. Legal expert and former Lok Sabha secretary general PDT Achary told PTI: “If the sentence was two years or more, then he would have been disqualified from contesting elections for six years.” He cited Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
The bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and SK Kaul said any “undue sympathy” to impose an inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system and undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law.
Reacting to his conviction, Sidhu said, “A life was lost and everybody will regret it. But the court says it was an accident. I have submitted to the majesty of the law and whatever the court says I abide by it”.
He went on to add, “I have been a survivor all my life. It is the grace of God which always prevails and bails me through. Every adversity has made me bigger and hence my reputation. From the age of 7 till 53, there has been no defeat.”
In its 24-page review judgment, the apex court said in the given circumstances, tempers may have been lost but then the consequences of the loss of temper must be borne.
It also said this is a case where some “germane facts for sentencing” appear to have been lost sight of while imposing only a fine on the Congress leader. Noting that the hand can also be a weapon by itself where a boxer, wrestler, cricketer, or an extremely physically fit person inflicts a blow, the SC said it did believe that indulgence was not required to be shown at the stage of sentence by only imposing fine and letting Sidhu go without any imposition of sentence.
“The result of the aforesaid is that the review applications/petitions are allowed to the aforesaid extent and in addition to the fine imposed we consider it appropriate to impose a sentence of imprisonment for a period of one-year rigorous imprisonment to be undergone by respondent no.1 (Sidhu),” said the bench.
The judgment noted that some material aspects which were required to be taken note of appeared to have been somehow missed out at the stage of sentencing, such as the physical fitness of Sidhu as he was an international cricketer, tall and well-built, and aware of the force of a blow that even his hand would carry.
“The blow was not inflicted on a person identically physically placed but a 65-year-old person, more than double his age. Respondent no.1 (Sidhu) cannot say that he did not know the effect of the blow or plead ignorance on this aspect,” it said.
The bench noted the top court, to some extent, had been indulgent in ultimately holding him guilty of the offence of simple hurt under section 323 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The question is whether even on sentence, the mere passage of time can result in a fine of Rs 1,000 being an adequate sentence where a person has lost his life because of the severity of the blow inflicted by Sidhu, who was 25-year-old at that time, with his hands, the court said.
Section 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of IPC entails a maximum jail term of up to one year or with a fine which may extend to Rs 1,000 or both.
Siddhu and his aide Rupinder Singh Sandhu engaged in a fight with the victim in 1988, leading to the victim’s death after some days. In 1999, Siddhu and other accused were acquitted but in 2006, Punjab and Haryana High Court convicted them for three years. The apex court had on May 15, 2018, set aside the HC verdict convicting Sidhu.
