Former India cricketer sentenced to prison for death caused by road rage In a decades-old road rage case, India’s top court sentenced cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu to one year in jail.
The Supreme Court decided in 1988 that Sidhu “deliberately inflicted harm” to Gurnam Singh, who died as a result of the event.
In 2018, the former MP was acquitted of the more severe allegation of manslaughter, which stands today. However, his political career has been severely harmed by his imprisonment.
After his party was wiped out in state legislature elections, Sidhu resigned as the Congress party’s head in Punjab. He has few legal alternatives remaining because he may only challenge the verdict once through a curative petition.
In 1988, Sidhu was charged with manslaughter when a 65-year-old man died in Patiala after an argument with him.
He was India’s opening batsman at the time, and his international cricket career was only getting started.
The trial court continued to hear the matter. Sidhu was acquitted by the court in 1999.
The state took his case to the top court, which found him guilty of manslaughter in 2006. This caused him to quit from his Amritsar parliamentary seat, as Indian law prohibits convicted persons from holding public office.
He took his case to the Supreme Court, which overturned the conviction and allowed him to reclaim his position in a by-election. In 2018, the Supreme Court declared him not guilty of manslaughter but guilty of “hurting the victim” and ordered him to pay a fine of 1,000 rupees ($13; £10).
The victim’s relatives filed an appeal, and the Supreme Court added a one-year term to the punishment on Thursday.
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