New Delhi: A fresh problem up for tourism and culture minister Navjot Singh Sidhu. The Congress government of Punjab has asked the Supreme Court to uphold Sidhu’s conviction in a 30-year-old road rage case. The top court had granted bail to the cricketer-turned-politician after he was sentenced to three years in prison by the Punjab and Haryana high court.
On December 27, 1988, Sidhu had allegedly hit 65-year-old Gurnam Singh after getting into an altercation with him in Patiala. Singh was rushed to a hospital, where he was declared dead.
Counsel for Punjab government today told a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul that Gurnam Singh had died of brain haemorrhage, and not cardiac arrest, after being struck by Sidhu.
“There is not a single evidence that suggest that the cause of death was cardiac arrest and not brain haemorrhage. The trial court verdict was rightly set aside by the high court. Accused A1 (Navjot Singh Sidhu) had given fiesty blow to deceased Gurnam Singh leading to his death through brain haemorrhage,” the state government counsel told the bench.
A trial court had acquitted Sidhu in the case, However, the Punjab and Haryana high court found the former cricketer guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and overturned the trial court’s verdict.
In 2007, the Supreme Court suspended Sidhu’s conviction to enable him to contest elections.