Sidhu sentenced to 1-year in prison in road rage case

Indian cricketer-turned-politician and former minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Thursday was sentenced to a year in prison by the country’s top court in a 1988 “road rage” case in which a person was killed, Indian media reported.

NDTV stated that Sidhu would have to surrender before a court to serve a year long rigorous imprisonment.

The Congress leader accepted the verdict, simply saying that he would “submit to the majesty of law” on his Twitter account.

Sidhu was involved in a car crash in his native city of Patiala in the northern state of Punjab in 1988.

The then cricket player was accused of fighting and beating the occupant of the other car, which led to his death. A lower court had acquitted the cricketer in 1999.

The verdict was subsequently challenged in 2006 and the Punjab and Haryana High Court found Sidhu guilty of homicide and sentenced him to three years in prison.

In 2018, the politician went to the apex court , which later overturned the high court’s order that there was no evidence that the man had died in one fell swoop.

However, the court found Sidhu guilty of injuring a senior and fined him 1,000 Indian rupees.

Today, the scope of the sentence was increased by the apex court at the hearing of a plea of review filed by the victim’s family on the issue of Sidhu’s sentence.

According to the report, Sidhu told the court that there was “no conclusive evidence to show that the single punch resulted in the death of the 65-year-old man” and accused the victim’s family engaging in a “malevolent attempt” to re-open the case.