New Delhi: Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu could be in more trouble with the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the plea for expanding the ambit of review petition to examine whether he could be punished for the offence of culpable homicide instead of causing hurt for which he was held guilty in 2018 and let off with fine by the apex court.
Although the apex court had earlier said that the review petition against its order in Sidhu’s case would be confined only on the issue whether the quantum of sentence be increased or not, it, however, agreed to hear an application seeking his conviction under IPC Section 299 and not under Section 323 in a 32-year-old road rage case.
A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul said that it had to deal with the issue of expanding the ambit of the review petition as application has been filed and asked the politician to file response in two weeks.
Sidharth Luthra, appearing for the petitioner, contended that the 2018 verdict was erroneous and it was against the settled principles of law and it was also wrong on the part of the court to say that there was no medical evidence. “The impugned judgment contradicts the settled position of law that if a person receives injuries and is admitted in hospital because of those injuries and suffers from some other disease (in this case alleged heart attack), and the victim subsequently dies; even in those cases, the accused persons are guilty of an offence falling clearly within the ambit of Section 299 of the IPC,” he submitted. Opposing his plea, senior advocate P Chidambaram, appearing for Sidhu, said that the court had very clearly held that the review was only on the sentence and the scope of review petition should not be enlarged four years after the order. He said that the SC held that he did not cause death and there was no need to re-examine the finding.
