No jail sentence for Sidhu in road rage case; fined by Rs 1000

Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu has been found guilty of causing injuries to a person in a 30-year-old road rage case and fined Rs. 1,000 by the Supreme Court today. The cricketer-turned-politician won’t go to jail and will retain his portfolio in the Punjab government.

Navjot Singh Sidhu had appealed in the top court challenging the Punjab and Haryana HC order convicting him. Sidhu had hit a 65-year-old man, Gurnam Singh, on the head during an argument on a road in Patiala on December 27, 1988. Gurnam Singh died of a haemorrhage at the hospital.

A trial court had discharged Mr Sidhu, but the High Court reversed it and held him guilty of culpable homicide in 2006. He was given three years in jail. In 2007, the Supreme Court suspended Mr Sidhu’s sentence and granted him bail after he appealed his conviction by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The suspended sentence enabled him to contest the Lok Sabha bypolls from Amritsar.