Sidhu to face trial for taking government official’s help for polls

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday held there was no evidence to prove that cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu had exceeded the `25 lakh cap on election expenses while contesting the Lok Sabha poll s from Amritsar in 2009, but directed him to face the charge of taking the help of a state government official for his campaign. A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and A M Sapre also said Sidhu need not be tried for the third charge related to the counting of votes where he was declared elected to Parliament as a BJP candidate.


“The allegation in the election petition is that the post to which Jagjit Singh Suchu was transferred from the Punjab State Electricity Board was under the state government and the assistance received by the returned candidate (Sidhu) from the said person is while he was rendering service as Additional Superintending Engineer, namely, while he was performing the duties in the state government.

If that be so, the aforesaid issue also will have to go for a full trial as ordered by the High Court,” held the bench.


In 2009 Sidhu had won polls from Amritsar on a BJP ticket. Congress Candidate Om Parkash Soni had alleged that he had violated the poll expenditure cap. He also alleged that he had got 11 officers transferred. Sidhu recently floated a new political front, Awaaz-e-Punjab,  after resigning from his Rajya Sabha seat and the BJ, for which he had won the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat in 2009. Soni had challenged Sidhu’s election in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. 

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