As if his humiliating defeat in the Punjab Assembly elections, which resulted in him losing his Party’s state presidential post, wasn’t bad enough, the Supreme Court on Friday reserved its decision on a petition seeking a review of its order letting off Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu with a Rs 1,000 fine in a 1988 road rage case in which a man died.
The SC was hearing the petition filed by the victim’s family, demanding that the former Punjab Congress chief be charged with a more serious crime such as culpable homicide, or even murder, than just causing hurt.
As the hearing concluded before the Special Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul, senior advocate AM Singhvi appearing for Sidhu questioned the “activation” of the case in the Supreme Court so close to the crucial Punjab Assembly elections.
“Why was this activated? This was suddenly listed before the elections… Don’t know why this case was activated, and now the elections are over,” Singhvi remarked.
The Bench ruled that the remark was not fair to the court. “This has nothing to do with elections,” said Justice Kaul.
According to Justice Khanwilkar, the court could infer much more about the case. “That is an incorrect argument, Mr Singhvi,” said Justice Khanwilkar, forcing Singhvi to retract his comment.
Notably, during the last hearing on March 22, Navjot Singh Sidhu had told the Supreme Court that “there is no conclusive evidence to show that a single fist blow caused the death of a 65-year-old man.” He accused the victim’s family of making a “malicious attempt” to reopen his road rage case. A month prior, Sidhu had urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the review plea in the 33-year-old road rage case, saying it’s not maintainable now.
Sidhu, in his reply to the review petition, said “the review petition is not maintainable, and the incident happened 33 years ago.”
Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu urges Supreme Court to dismiss review petition in the road rage case against him. Sidhu, in reply to review petition, says the review petition is not maintainable and the incident happened 33 years ago. pic.twitter.com/jNn4o8SYUj
— ANI (@ANI) February 25, 2022
Sidhu had also urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the review petition in the road rage case against him, citing his “impeccable reputation and clean antecedents” and pleading with the Court not to change his sentence in the case.
But, unfortunately for the Congress leader, the Supreme Court has reserved its decision in a review petition seeking modification of the sentence handed down to Navjot Singh Sidhu in a 33-year-old road rage case, and has given all parties a week to file their submissions before reserving its decision.
Sadly, Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu has recently been navigating extremely turbulent waters. On March 16, 2022, the Punjab Congress leader had tendered his resignation to Sonia Gandhi. In what can be described as one of the shortest resignation letters, Navjot Singh Sidhu wrote, “I hereby resign as President (PPCC)”. The cricketer-turned controversial politician posted a copy of the resignation letter on Twitter saying, “As desired by the Congress President I have sent my resignation.”
The letter came a day after Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi had asked all presidents of Pradesh Congress Committees of five states where assembly elections were held recently to put down their papers.
This marked the end of the short term of Sidhu as the Punjab Congress chief, for which he was fighting a battle inside the party for several years.
