New Delhi, March 21
The Supreme Court on Monday said it would hear on March 25 the plea seeking review of the sentence awarded by it in May 2018 to cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu in a 1988 road rage case.
The matter was listed for hearing before a special bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and S K Kaul.
As soon the bench of Justices Khanwilkar and A S Oka assembled for hearing matters in the post-lunch session, Justice Khanwilkar said the special bench would hear the review plea on Friday.
“This bench is going to continue with the remaining work. So, the special bench matter can be taken up on Friday at 2 pm,” Justice Khanwilkar said.
On February 25, the apex court had asked Congress leader Sidhu to file response within two weeks on an application which has said that his conviction in the case should not have been merely for the lesser offence of voluntarily causing hurt.
Though the top court had in May 2018 held Sidhu guilty of the offence of “voluntarily causing hurt” to a 65-year-old man, it spared him of a jail term and imposed a fine of Rs 1,000.
Later in September 2018, the apex court agreed to examine a review petition filed by the family members of the deceased and had issued notice, restricted to the quantum of sentence.
In a reply filed to the application seeking enlargement of scope of notice, Sidhu has said the apex court, after a careful perusal of the contents of the review petitions, has restricted its scope to quantum of sentence.
“It is well settled that whenever this court issues notice confining to sentence, arguments will be heard only to that effect unless some extraordinary circumstance/material is shown to the Court. It is respectfully submitted that the contents of the present applications reiterate only overruled arguments and do not show any extraordinary material, calling for interference on all aspects from this court,” the reply said.
It said the petitioners have moved the applications after a lapse of about three-and-a-half-year from the issuance of limited notice on September 11, 2018 and this “unaccounted delay without any cogent explanation” raises doubts on the bonafides of the applications.
“It is respectfully submitted that the present applications seeking expansion of the limited notice will amount to a second review which is impermissible in law,” it said, adding, “It is further submitted that the petitioners through the present applications are requesting this court to undertake a roving/fishing enquiry and re-appreciate the entire evidence on record.”
The reply said the apex court had perused the entire evidence on record, including medical evidence, to conclude that cause of death of Gurnam Singh could not be ascertained.
“The impugned judgement has specifically concluded that the prosecution has failed to prove that the injuries inflicted by the accused had resulted in death of the deceased. Therefore, in this background, application of sections 299/300 (of the Indian Penal Code) is not possible as these provisions will only apply when the injury has led to death,” it said.
