Sidhu may face jail as SC agrees to re-examine sentence awarded in 20-yr-old road rage case

Punjab Tourism Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu may face harsher punishment in the 20-year-old road rage case after the Supreme Court agreed to re-examine the sentence awarded to the cricketer turned politician.

The apex court had on May 15 set aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court order convicting him of culpable homicide and awarding him three-year jail term, but held him guilty of minor offence of causing hurt to a senior citizen and spared him of jail term.

A bench of Justices J Chelameswar (since retired) and Kaul had on May 15 acquitted Sidhu's aide an co-accused Rupinder Singh Sandhu of all charges.

It had said that there was no trustworthy evidence regarding Sandhu's presence along with Sidhu at the time of the offence.

The Supreme Court also imposed a fine of Rs 1,000 on Sidhu for the offence under section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the IPC.

However, abench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul agreed to examine a review petition filed by family members of deceased Jaswinder Singh and issued a notice to Sidhu on Wednesday in the case.

"Issue notice restricted to the quantum of sentence to respondent no. 1 Navjot Singh Sidhu," the bench said in an order which was uploaded on apex court website on Wednesday.

On December 27, 1998, Sidhu and his friend -- Rupinder Singh Sandhu - had entered into an argument with the victim, Gurnam Singh, over parking space in Patiala. The two allegedly dragged Gurnam out of his car and hit him. He died soon after.