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Former Indian cricketer and Politician, Navjot Singh Sidhu jailed for road rage death
The Supreme Court of India has sentenced cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu to one year in prison in a decades-old road rage case. According to the court ruling, Navjot Singh Sidhu "intentionally caused hurt" to Gurnam Singh, who was 65, resulting in his death in the incident in 1988.
He recently resigned as the Congress party's chief in Punjab after his party lost in state assembly elections. He has only milted options left as he can appeal against the ruling only once in the form of a curative petition.
He was acquitted of the more serious charge of manslaughter in 2018 - that still stands. He was first accused of manslaughter in 1988 when a 65-year-old man died hours after an argument with him in Patiala.
In 1999, the court acquitted Sidhu, however, the State appealed against the acquittal in the high court, which convicted him for manslaughter in 2006. He then appealed in the Supreme Court which stayed the conviction. In 2018, the top court acquitted him in the manslaughter case, but found him guilty of "hurting the victim" and asked him to pay a fine of 1,000 rupees. The victim's family appealed against the ruling and on Thursday, the Supreme Court added a one-year sentence to the fine.