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er Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu surrendered before a court in his hometown Patiala in Punjab in a 1988 road rage case in which the Supreme Court enhanced his punishment to a year’s rigorous imprisonment over the death of a 65-year-old man. Earlier yesterday, Sidhu requested the apex court to grant him a few more weeks to surrender, citing health grounds.
Sidhu surrendered in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Amit Malhan. After a medical check-up, the former cricketer-turned-politician was lodged in the Patiala Central Jail.
Sidhu has been lodged in an ordinary barrack as the AAP government in Punjab last week decided to junk special cells in jails for VIP prisoners.
Interestingly, Bikram Singh Majithia, one of the most powerful Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leaders, is in judicial custody in the same jail where Sidhu has been lodged.
Both Sidhu and Majithia, who is facing charges in a drugs case, were once close friends but are now political enemies.
They were in fray from Amritsar East in the recently-held Assembly polls and the seat witnessed a bitter battle. They faced defeat from AAP’s greenhorn Jeevan Jyot Kaur.
With the apex court imposing the imprisonment, Sidhu said he will submit to the majesty of law .
The judgment came when Sidhu, riding on an elephant, was staging a protest, along with party workers, against price rise in Patiala where the incident of road rage was reported in 1988.
The apex court, which reserved the judgment in March, overturned its 2018 judgment, which had reduced the punishment for Sidhu in the case, after a review petition was filed by the family of Gurnam Singh, who had died in the incident.
On December 27, 1988, the cricketer-turned-politician and one of his friends, Rupinder Singh Sandhu, had on December 27, 1988, hit Gurnam Singh, 65, on his head near the Sheranwala Gate crossing in Patiala.