Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, May 19: In a 1988 road rage accident in which one person named Gurnam Singh died, the Supreme Court increased Navjot Singh Sidhu’s sentence to one year in jail on Thursday. A bench of Justices A. M. Khanwilkar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul pronounced the verdict.
The Court granted the family of victim Gurnam Singh’s request for a review of the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision, which lowered Navjot Singh Sidhu’s punishment in the case from three years to Rs 1000.
In May 2018, a division bench comprised of Justice J Chelameshwar (since retired) and Justice SK Kaul held that Sidhu’s crime will not amount to ‘culpable offence not amounting to murder’ punishable under Section 304 Part II of the Indian Penal Code, and found him guilty for the offence of ‘voluntarily causing hurt’ under Section 323 IPC.
The victim’s relatives filed review petitions in 2018, challenging the 2018 verdict that lowered Sidhu’s sentence. After hearing Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra for the review petitioners and Senior Advocate Dr AM Singhvi for Sidhu, the bench reserved decision on March 25. The incident occurred on December 27, 1988, at a traffic intersection in Patiala, when Sidhu pulled the dead from his vehicle and assaulted him with fist blows over a disagreement about vehicle driving.