CHANDIGRAH: Former cricketer and Punjab Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu is in a
catch-22 situation, as his own Congress-led state government has urged the Supreme Court to uphold three-year jail sentence ordered by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the road rage case against him.
As Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh defended his government’s stand in the Navjot Singh Sidhu case in the Supreme Court as being the only legal option available before it, he expressed hope
that the judge would take into account the minister’s contribution to the society and the country in his final verdict.
Though the government could not have taken any other stand in the apex court, other than what it had been taken in the trial and high court earlier, Sidhu deserved the court’s consideration, Amarinder said, adding that “Had we done so, we would have been accused of lying either now or earlier,” he quipped, adding that he did not believe in playing politics in judicial cases.
Sidhu, whom he had known since the latter was a child, was a person totally above board, who went out of the way to help people in need, said Amarinder, rejecting charges of not liking the minister.
Sidhu had refused to comment on the stand of his party’s government in the Supreme Court in the road rage case he is facing. "Whether I am shocked or annoyed, I am not going to share with anybody. I
will not blame anybody either. Whatever the verdict, I will alone bear the burden. I have full faith in the judiciary. I have retained this faith for the last thirty years and will continue to retain it in future as well. I am hopeful of getting justice,” he added.
Earlier when asked about his own party’s government stand in the apex court, Sidhu said that only the CM or the Advocate General could comment on this. “ I will not comment,” he reiterated.
The state government has urged the apex court to uphold the three-year jail sentence ordered by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the road rage case in which an old man Gurnam Singh had died in Patiala. This is the same stand taken by the state government in the HC in this case in 2006 when Amarinder was the Chief Minister. Then Sidhu was the BJP Member of Parliament from Amritsar.
Just before the assembly elections last year Sidhu had switched sides and had left the BJP and joined the Congress and called it a homecoming.
Sidhu had challenged the high court order in the supreme court which had granted him bail. The hearing in the case is going on and the verdict is awaited.
A trial court in Patiala had acquitted Sidhu and his friend Rupinder Singh Sandhu, but in 2006 the High Court reserved the finding and declared them guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, sentencing them for three years in jail.