Lagatar24 Desk
Patiala, May 20: Cricketer-turned-politician, Navjot Singh Sidhu has surrendered to the Patiala court a day after the Supreme Court sentenced him to a year in prison in a 1988 road rage case.
The Supreme Court had already granted a review of its May 2018 decision exonerating former Punjab Congress President Navjot Singh Sidhu in the 34-year-old road rage case in which Patiala resident Gurnam Singh died.
Sidhu had previously been given a Rs 1,000 fine. Sidhu has now been sentenced to the maximum penalty under Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code.
On May 15, 2018, the Supreme Court overturned a Punjab and Haryana High Court decision convicting Sidhu of culpable homicide and imposing a three-year sentence in the case, but found him guilty of injuring an elderly citizen.
Navjot Sidhu was found guilty of “voluntarily causing harm to a 65-year-old man,” but the Supreme Court spared him jail time and only fined him Rs 1,000.
In September 2018, the Supreme Court decided to hear a review petition brought by the deceased’s family members and gave Sidhu notice of the hearing.
His wife, Navjot Kaur Sidhu, claimed the case was being pursued at the request of SAD politician Bikramjit Majithia just before the Punjab elections earlier this year. The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the plea by Gurnam Singh’s family to convict Sidhu for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, under Section 304A of IPC, on Sidhu. However, the court imposed the maximum punishment under Section 323.