A physically fit 25-year-old international cricketer is expected to know the impact of a blow delivered by him, the Supreme Court noted while sentencing Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu to one year in jail in a 1988 road rage case.
Sidhu is expected to reach the court at 10am on Friday.
Quoting the ancient Hindu text of Dharmashastra to explain the need for proportionate punishment, the Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul said: “The aspects of sentencing and victimology are reflected in the following ancient wisdom:
“यथावयो यथाकालं यथा प्राणंच ब्राह्मणे। प्रायश्चितं प्रदातव्यंब्राह्मणैर्धर्धपाठकै ैः । येन शुध्ददर्वाप्नोश्चत न च प्राणैश्चवधयुज्यते। आश्चतिंवा र्हतीं यश्चत न चैतद् व्रतर्ा श्चदशेत ।।“
It means: The person dispensing justice as per Dharmashastra should prescribe a penance appropriate to the age, the time and strength of the sinner, the penance being such that he may not lose his life and yet he may be purified. A penance causing distress should not be prescribed,” the judgment said, according to Bar & Bench.
The apex court was of the view that a disproportionately light punishment humiliates the victim when the offender goes unpunished or is awarded a relatively minor punishment.
In 1988, Sidhu was accused in a road rage case in which Gurnam Singh from Patiala had died. According to the prosecution in the case, Sidhu and his aide Rupinder Singh Sandhu were in a Gypsy parked in the middle of a road near the Sheranwala Gate Crossing in Patiala on December 27, 1988, when the victim and two others were on their way to the bank to withdraw money.
When they reached the crossing, it was alleged, that Gurnam Singh, driving a Maruti car, found the Gypsy in the middle of the road and asked the occupants, Sidhu and Sandhu, to remove it. This led to heated exchanges. According to reports, Sidhu had hit Gurnam Singh on his head which later led to his death.
In May 2018, the apex court had set aside a judgment of the Punjab & Haryana High Court which held the former cricketer guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and modified his conviction to one under Section 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt). Consequently, the three-year jail sentence imposed by the High Court was changed to a mere fine of ₹1,000.
The Supreme Court had in September 2018 admitted the review petition filed against the sentence awarded to Sidhu in the case.
Observations
According to the court, aspects such as Sidhu’s physical fitness, him inflicting a blow on a man over twice his age, and consequences of the ex-cricketer’s temper were not taken into account while sentencing.
“Sidhu cannot say that he did not know the effect of the blow or plead ignorance on this aspect…The hand can also be a weapon by itself where say a boxer, a wrestler or a cricketer or an extremely physically fit person inflicts the same. In the given circumstances, tempers may have been lost but then the consequences of the loss of temper must be borne.”
The Bench cited its previous judgments to state that undue sympathy to impose inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system and undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law. The society can not long endure under serious threats and if the courts do not protect the injured, the injured would then resort to private vengeance and, therefore, it is the duty of every court to award proper sentence, the Court reiterated.
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