Road Rage Case: Navjot Sidhu gets A Year's Jail Term

The Supreme Court sentenced cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sindhu to jail for one year in connection with a 1998 road rage incident in which Sidhu beat up an old man. A bench, comprising justices AM Khanwilkar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul, enhanced the punishment in review. The review had been sought by the family of the deceased Gurnam Singh.

Another bench of the top court had in 2018 let him off with a fine of ₹1,000. The court had then highly commended his cricketing skills and also taken note of the fact that there was no prior enmity involved in the old case.

"We do believe that the indulgence was not required to be shown at the stage of sentence by only imposing a sentence of fine and letting the respondent go without any imposition of sentence," said the bench led by Justice Khanwilkar.


There was a necessity of maintaining a reasonable proportion between the seriousness of the crime and the punishment, said the bench. The court had earlier been rather indulgent in ultimately holding him guilty of an offence of simple hurt under section 323 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), it said.

"While a disproportionately severe sentence ought not to be passed, simultaneously it also does not clothe the law courts to award a sentence which would be manifestly inadequate... Since an inadequate sentence would fail to produce a deterrent effect on the society at large," said the bench.

Indifference to the rights of the victims of crime is fast eroding the faith of the society in general and the victim of crime in particular in the criminal justice system, said the court.