On Friday, Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu surrendered to a court in Patiala the one-year rigorous imprisonment he was sentenced to by the Supreme Court in a 1988 road rage case.
An earlier request by Sidhu for a couple of weeks to “organise his medical affairs” was denied by the apex court.
As a result of the surrender, Sidhu was taken for a medical examination and will be sent to Patiala jail. According to Surinder Dalla, Sidhu has surrendered himself to the Chief Judicial Magistrate. He will undergo a medical examination and other legal procedures.
In the case of Gurnam Singh, a 65-year-old man who died in a road rage incident, the apex court sentenced Sidhu to one year of rigorous imprisonment on Thursday. On December 27, 1988, while the victim and two others were trying to withdraw money from a bank, Sidhu and his aide Rupinder Singh Sandhu were parked in a Gypsy near the Sheranwala Gate Crossing, Patiala.
Gurnam Singh, driving a Maruti car when they reached the crossing, found the Gypsy in the middle of the road and asked the occupants, Sidhu and Sandhu, to remove it. This led to heated exchanges between them. In September 1999, a trial court acquitted Sidhu of murder charges.
In its verdict, the apex court said that any “undue sympathy” to impose an inadequate sentence would worsen the justice system and undermine public confidence in the law.
The Supreme Court had in May 2018 held Sidhu guilty of the offence of “voluntarily causing hurt” to a 65-year-old man, but spared him a jail term and imposed a fine of Rs 1,000. Sidhu’s conviction for culpable homicide and three-year prison sentence had then been set aside by the court.
Rupinder Singh Sandhu, a close aide to Sidhu, was also absolved of all charges because there was no reliable evidence showing his presence with Sidhu on the night of the crime in December 1988.
Sidhu’s lawyer, senior advocate A M Singhvi, had requested a few weeks for her surrender before a bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar. Despite the fact that it has been 34 years, Singhvi said, “He will surrender shortly,” adding, “We want to give him a few weeks to surrender.”
Several Congress leaders and supporters, including the president of the Patiala District Congress Committee Narinder Pal Lali, turned up at the former Punjab unit leader’s residence on Friday morning. From his home to the district court, which is located close to the former Punjab Congress president’s residence, party leaders, including Navtej Singh Cheema, accompanied him.
The 58-year-old politician, who had earlier rode an elephant in Patiala to protest rising commodity prices, took to Twitter after the SC’s ruling to say he “will submit to the majesty of the law.”
