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Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu was today sentenced to one year in jail in a 34-year-old road rage case by the Supreme Court, in a massive setback to the cricketer-politician just months after an election defeat.
Navjot Sidhu, 58, has to surrender before a court to serve a year's "rigorous imprisonment". "Will submit to the majesty of law...," tweeted the former Punjab Congress chief, who had participated in a protest this morning.
The Supreme Court was hearing a petition by the family of a man who died after a brawl with Mr Sidhu and his associate in 1988.
On December 27, 1988, Mr Sidhu got into an argument with Gurnam Singh, a resident of Patiala, over a parking spot. Mr Sidhu and his associate, Rupinder Singh Sandhu, allegedly dragged Gurnam Singh out of his car and hit him. He later died.
In 1999, a sessions court in Patiala acquitted Mr Sidhu and his associate citing lack of evidence and giving the benefit of the doubt.
On a petition challenging this verdict, the Punjab and Haryana High court convicted Mr Sidhu in 2006 of culpable homicide and sentenced him to three years in jail.
In 2018, Mr Sidhu approached the Supreme Court, which set aside the High Court order saying there was no evidence the man had died of a single blow. But it held the cricketer-politician guilty of causing hurt to a senior citizen.
While Mr Sidhu was held guilty of voluntarily causing hurt to a 65-year-old man, he was spared a jail term and fined Rs 1,000.
