Punjab Tourism Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Tuesday won reprieve when the Supreme Court found him not guilty of culpable homicide in a 30-year-old road rage case in which a man died after a brief public skirmish with the cricketer-turned-politician.
A Bench of Justices Jasti Chelameswar and S.K. Kaul instead convicted Mr. Sidhu of the lesser offence of voluntarily causing hurt with no intention to murder under Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code.
The court, as punishment, imposed a fine of Rs.1000 on Mr. Sidhu.
The court set aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court order convicting Mr. Sidhu and co-accused Rupinder Singh Sandhu under Section of 304 (2) of the IPC for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentencing them both to three years' imprisonment.
If the apex court had upheld the high court decision, it would have led to the disqualification of Mr. Sidhu from the government as per the Representation of the People Act.
The court had reserved the case for judgment on April 18.
Mr. Sidhu, through his counsel and senior advocate R.S. Cheema, argued that the medical opinion on the cause of death of the victim, Gurnam Singh, was “vague“.
Mr. Cheema discussed the evidence brought on record regarding the cause of death of the victim and extensively dealt with culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The arguments saw a twist when the State prosecution, on the opposite side, also agree with the high court’s conviction and sentence for the Tourism Minister in the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress government.
The prosecution version said Mr. Sidhu and Mr. Sandhu, represented by senior counsel R.Basant and advocate Karthik Ashok, were allegedly in a Gypsy parked on the middle of a road near the Sheranwala Gate Crossing in Patiala on December 27, 1988.
The victim and two others were on their way to the bank to withdraw money. It was alleged that when they had reached the crossing, 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.
The police had claimed that Mr. Singh was beaten up by Mr. Sidhu, who later fled the crime scene. The victim was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead.
