NEW DELHI: Cricketer-turned-politician
Navjot Singh Sidhu may have joined
Congress and become a cabinet minister in Punjab but the stand of the state government remained unchanged on his alleged involvement a 1988 road rage case resulting in the death of a person.
The state government on Thursday opposed his plea for acquittal in the case and told a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul in the SC that there was no error in the Punjab and Haryana HC verdict convicting him in the case and awarding a three-year jail term.
Interestingly, present chief minister
Capt Amarinder Singh was also at the helm in 2006 when the state government took a stand against Sidhu in the HC which convicted him. Sidhu at that time was member of BJP. Twelve years down the line, Singh has come back to power and Sidhu has joined Congress. The state government, having taken a stand in the HC seeking Sidhu’s conviction, found it difficult to change its stand in the SC.
Appearing for the state, advocate Sangram Singh Saron said eyewitness account and medical evidence proved the former cricketer’s guilt in the case beyond doubt and pleaded the court not to interfere with the HC verdict. On Dec 27, 1988, Sidhu and Rupinder Singh Sandhu got into an argument with one Gurnam Singh over parking space at Patiala. Sidhu and his friend had allegedly dragged Singh out of his car and dealt him a series of blows, causing his death. When Jaswinder Singh, who was with Gurnam Singh, tried to intervene, Sandhu had also assaulted him.
A sessions court acquitted Sidhu and Sandhu in 1999 but the order was quashed by the HC which convicted them and awarded a three-year jail term. The convicts thereafter approached the SC which had stayed their conviction.
As the SC started final hearing in the case, Sidhu and his friend contended that the victim died of heart attack and they could not be held guilty for it.
