The Punjab Government struck a huge blow to its own Minister and noted cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu by seeking his conviction and sentencing in a 30-year-old road rage case which resulted in the death of a Patiala resident. The stand of the Punjab Government has also exposed the deep fissures within the party over the inclusion of Sidhu into the Congress fold. Sidhu had quit the Bharatiya Janata Party to join the Congress just before the State went to polls.
Appearing before the Supreme Court, the Punjab Government opened its arguments on Thursday contesting the appeal filed by Sidhu and his co-accused Rupinder Singh Sandhu challenging the order passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court which convicted them both and sentenced them to undergo three years in prison.
Supporting the victim, the counsel for Punjab told a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul that the Punjab and Haryana High Court was right in convicting its Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu and he deserved to suffer the three- year imprisonment for the crime. The counsel agreed with the finding of the High Court that the victim Gurnam Singh died due to the impact of the fist blow by Sidhu. The incident was of December 27, 1988 and following the incident, a trial court had acquitted Sidhu and his friend finding no evidence against them.
Contrary to the trial court conclusion, the State Government argued that it was wrong to suggest that the victim died due to cardiac arrest and not due to brain hemorrhage due to the impact of the blow.
“There is no evidence that suggests that the cause of death was cardiac arrest and not brain hemorrhage. The trial court verdict was rightly set aside by the High Court. Accused (Sidhu) had given feisty blow to deceased Gurnam Singh leading to his death due to brain hemorrhage,” argued the State.
The HC had pronounced Sidhu guilty under culpable homicide not amounting to murder IPC Section 304 Part II IPC after taking an opinion from a Board of Doctors who held the cause of death to be brain hemorrhage.