(NDTV)
Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu has been found guilty of causing injuries to a person in a 30-year-old road rage case by the Supreme Court today. The 55-year-old cricketer-turned-politician won’t go to jail and will retain his portfolio in the Punjab government. He has been asked to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000. Mr 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. Singh died of a haemorrhage at the hospital later.
A trial court had discharged Mr Sidhu, but the the Punjab and Haryana 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. The suspended sentence enabled him to contest the Lok Sabha bypolls from Amritsar. Last month, Mr Sidhu appealed in the top court challenging the High Court order and argued before the bench of Justices J Chelameswar and SK Kaul that the three witnesses presented by the prosecution had spoken in “different language” before the trial court.
