New Delhi, April 6: The heirs of the complainant in the 1988 road rage case against Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu filed a fresh plea in the Supreme Court on Thursday, accusing the cricketer-turned-politician of having admitted his guilt in an interview with India TV in 2010.
The application alleged that in the interview on journalist Rajat Sharma’s show ‘Aap Ki Adalat’, that was re-telecast on Wednesday night, Sidhu “had admitted not only to the involvement of both accused in the brawl on the date of the incident but also admitted and accepted hitting the victim, Gurnam Singh, with fist blows, resulting in his death.
”Jaswinder Singh (now deceased), a relative of Gurnam Singh, had filed the complaint three decades ago. The complainant’s heirs, represented by senior advocates Ranjit Kumar, Siddharth Luthra and advocate Sudhir Walia, submitted a CD and a YouTube link of the interview and sought the court’s permission to place it on record.
Describing the interview as an “extra-judicial confession”, the applicant said it could not be produced earlier as the same had only now come to his knowledge.
On Sidhu’s behalf, senior counsel RS Cheema opposed it on the ground that such a plea could not be entertained after the trial was over and the case was at the stage of appeal in the Supreme Court.
If at all it had to be filed, it should have been filed before the trial court or at best the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Cheema added.“Do you want the case to be remanded back to the trial court?” asked a Bench of Justice J Chelameswar and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul. However, the Bench said it would hear both sides on the maintainability of the application on Tuesday.
According to the prosecution, Sidhu and his friend Rupinder Singh Sandhu were in a Gypsy parked near the Sheranwala Gate crossing in Patiala on December 27, 1988, while Gurnam was on his way to a bank in a Maruti car with two others. When Gurnam asked the Gypsy occupants to give them way, he was allegedly beaten up by the accused, who then fled the scene.
He was taken to a hospital, where he was declared dead.Last month, Sandhu had denied his presence at the crime scene and questioned the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s decision to reverse the trial court’s acquittal verdict.
Source Tribune India
