Navjot Singh Sidhu
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A brief biography
Till May 2022
May 20, 2022: The Times of India
From: May 20, 2022: The Times of India
NEW DELHI: Roughly a year ago, Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu was eyeing the chief minister's post in Punjab after successfully dislodging Captain Amarinder Singh. The cricketer-turned-politician had set his eyes on Chandigarh — the highest seat of power in the state. But as fate would have it, the Punjab Congress leader now finds himself just 70km away, lodged at a prison in Patiala.
The 58-year-old former Punjab Congress president on Friday surrendered before a court in Patiala, a day after the Supreme Court sentenced him to one-year rigorous imprisonment in a 1988 road rage case.
Sidhu surrendered shortly after 4pm and was taken for the mandatory medical examination, conducted at the Mata Kaushalya Hospital. After the medical check-up, he was lodged in the Patiala jail where he is likely to spend the next year.
Indeed, the political fortunes of the former cricketer have witnessed a massive downturn compared to a year ago, when he was enjoying the support of dozens of MLAs and was the potential face of the Congress's Punjab campaign.
34-year-old case comes back to haunt Sidhu
In 1988, Sidhu and one of his associates Rupinder Singh Sandhu had allegedly hit one Gurnam Singh on his head following an altercation in Patiala.
Gurnam Singh, 65, later died.
Shortly after Singh's death, Sidhu and his associate were booked on charges of murder.
In 1999, Sidhu was acquitted of the murder charges by a trial court. However, the Punjab high court reversed the verdict and held Sidhu and his co-accused guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder in December 2006. It sentenced them to three years in jail and imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh each.
Both Sidhu and Sandhu filed an appeal in the Supreme Court, which stayed their conviction in 2007.
In 2018, the Supreme Court acquitted Sidhu of culpable homicide and convicted him of causing hurt in the road rage case. He was let off with a mere Rs 1,000 fine.
However, in February 2022, the apex court agreed to hear a plea seeking a review of its May 15, 2018 verdict.
Overturning its own decision, the top court observed that any “undue sympathy” to impose an inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system and undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law.
"In the given circumstances, tempers may have been lost but then the consequences of the loss of temper must be borne," the court said, as it sentenced Sidhu to one-year imprisonment.
Reversal of fortunes
Sidhu's sentencing and subsequent imprisonment come at a time when the political leader is struggling to stay relevant in a party that itself suffered a major rout in the recent Punjab elections.
Last year, after successfully engineering the removal of Amarinder, Sidhu was set to be the top Congress draw from Punjab. It was widely expected that the Congress would pick the fiery leader as its chief ministerial face in the elections.
However, the first blow came after the Congress not only picked then little-known Charanjit Channi for the top post but also persisted with him throughout the election campaign.
Congress's reluctance to name the former cricketer as its CM face may have been a calculated move to avoid infighting, but it did cut Sidhu's political ambition down to size.
After a drubbing in the ensuing polls, Sidhu was cast aside further as party chief Sonia Gandhi asked him - along with four other state Congress presidents - to resign from the post.
Since then, Sidhu had made several remarks against Channi, his party, the leadership and sometimes in favour of the Congress's opponents (read current Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann).
The leader's remarks have left many guessing about his political plans for the future.
Notably, in 2017, Sidhu had switched over to the Congress from the BJP ahead of the 2017 assembly polls.
However, with a 34-year-old case coming back to haunt him again, Sidhu's political ambitions will likely remain in limbo for now.
A brief biography
1996-2021 Sept
Jatin Gandhi, Sep 30, 2021: The Times of India
Asit Jolly , Sherry spike in AAP “India Today” 8/8/2016
Sidhu, in a sort of tantrum now commonly associated with him, quit India’s tour of England and took a flight back from London to New Delhi. He did not inform anyone. “He just left behind a note to be handed over to the team manager,” recalls a veteran cricket journalist.
The reason for leaving the tour mid-way, Sidhu told the press later in India, was that he “could not tolerate the repeated affronts to his dignity.”
In the two ODIs that he played on the tour, Sidhu had scored a three and 20. Captain Mohammed Azharuddin had reportedly used some cuss words he routinely used with fellow players. But Sidhu, instead of reporting the matter to the team management and sorting out things, just left.
It was not a wise call on his part. According to former BCCI secretary late Jaywant Lele’s book ‘I was there – Memoirs of a Cricket Administrator’, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) set up a committee. But Sidhu would just not tell the committee members what had transpired in England that led him to quit the tour. He just kept repeating that “what he did was wrong and that he was ready to face the consequences.”
It was only when a second committee was set up which had Mohinder Amarnath on it did the matter get resolved. Mohinder took Sidhu out for a walk and that is when Sidhu revealed the cuss word Azhar would use all the time. Amarnath burst out laughing. He told Sidhu that while it did sound like a cuss word to a Punjabi, it was commonly used in Hyderabad and is, in fact, a term of endearment.
Moral of the story – if Sidhu, like an adult, had taken up the matter with the team management, the matter would have been resolved in England itself and saved everyone a lot of embarrassment. But Sidhu is somebody who fires first and then thinks of the consequences of the bullet hitting someone.
Late Arun Jaitley, an adept politician, lawyer and cricket administrator brought Sidhu into politics and got him a BJP ticket in 2004 to contest from Amritsar. He was all praise for Sidhu’s crowd-pulling skills and unorthodox style of politics. Sidhu called Jaitleyhis ‘Guru’.
But the two fell out once Jaitley got the party ticket in 2014 to contest from Amritsar and Sidhu was sent to Rajya Sabha. Sidhu quit the BJP and flirted with the Aam Aadmi Party before joining the Congress in 2017. A senior Aam Aadmi Party leader, who is privy to the negotiations between Sidhu and the fledgling party in 2016, says Sidhu wanted to be projected as the chief ministerial face of the party and the AAP leadership had accepted his demand. “It was a tacit understanding. But he also wanted a ministerial berth for his wife to which we did not agree,” he said. The AAP leader said that before the negotiations were over, Sidhu decided to walk away. “We only got to know of his decision from a press conference aired live on TV.”
In August 2018, when Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh advised Sidhu against going to Pakistan for Imran Khan’s swearing-in as prime minister, Sidhu ignored him. At the ceremony, he hugged Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Bajwa, creating an unending controversy.
Back in India, at a press conference a few months later, when he was asked about Captain’s comments, Sidhu refused to acknowledge him as his leader. “Which captain are you talking about? My captain is Rahul Gandhi,” he told a journalist. Sidhu eventually quit Singh’s cabinet in July 2019.
When he was installed as the state unit president on July 18 this year, it was assumed the Congress high-command had managed to stem the rot in Punjab and that now Sidhu would work with the new chief minister Charanjeet Singh Channi to prepare the party for the forthcoming state elections.
How wrong the Congress high-command was. This time again when Sidhu quit nobody had an inkling of his decision till it dropped like a bomb on Twitter. It has not only precipitated a crisis for the party, but it has also heaped embarrassment on Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who had backed him against Amarinder.
Perhaps, they should have checked with Azharuddin or read Lele’s book.
Whenever Sidhu has walked away from an unfavourable situation, Sidhu has used the words “honour” and “dignity”. That’s exactly what he did this time too.
Road rage case
As in 2018 Sept
Reported by A Vaidyanathan, Edited by Debanish Achom, Sep 13, 2018: NDTV
Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu is facing the possibility of receiving harsher punishment in a road rage case, in which a man died 20 years ago. The minister was sentenced in the case four months ago, with a nominal fine of ₹ 1,000. But the Supreme Court, which decided there was no evidence to prove that his alleged rash driving led to the death of the man, has now sent him a notice, asking him to show cause on why he should not receive harsher punishment.
The top court's order came after the family of the man who died filed a petition.The punishment in such cases is a fine and/or a one-year jail term.
"The issue notice is restricted to the quantum of sentence qua respondent no. 1 - Navjot Singh Sidhu," the two-judge bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul said.
In May, a bench of Justices J Chelameswar, who has since retired, and Sanjay Kishan Kaul sentenced the Congress leader with a fine. The order enabled the cricketer-turned-politician continue as a minister in the Punjab government.
Conviction in a criminal case, if less than two years, does not hamper political career.
On December 27, 1998, Mr Sidhu and his friend -- Rupinder Singh Sandhu - had entered into an argument with the victim, Gurnam Singh, over parking space in Patiala. The two allegedly dragged Mr Gurnam out of his car and hit him. He died soon after.
A trial court had discharged Mr Sidhu, but the Punjab and Haryana High Court held him guilty of culpable homicide in 2006 and sent him to jail for three years in the road rage case.
The cricketer-turned-politician and his friend then approached the Supreme Court. 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.
90 Comments Earlier this year, a bench headed by Justices Chalemeswar and Sanjay Kishan Kaul let the two off with a fine of ₹ 1,000, because "there was no evidence to prove that that the death was caused by the single blow" dealt by Mr Sidhu.
2022/ Sidhu gets 1-year RI
Dhananjay Mahapatra, May 20, 2022: The Times of India
New Delhi: On the heels of an electoral rout, former Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu was sentenced to one year’s rigorous imprisonment by the Supreme Court on Thursday in a 1988 road rage case in which a 65-year-old man died of fist-blow injuries. Admitting that the March 15, 2018 judgment by a bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar was unduly lenient in letting off Sidhu with a fine of Rs 1,000 in a case under Section 323 of IPC (voluntarily causing hurt), a bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Sanjay K Kaul imposed the jail term on the former cricketer in addition to the fine. But it refused to expand the scope of the offence to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
“We do believe. . . indulgence was not required to be shown. . . by only imposing a sentence of fine and letting the respondent go without any imposition of sentence,” it said. “Will submit to the majesty of law,” tweeted Sidhu.
