Chandigarh, Dec 1 (IANS) Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu was Friday convicted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court for causing the death of a Patiala resident during a street scuffle in 1988.
Sidhu, 43, was charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder over the death of Gurnam Singh.
A high court bench of Justices Mehtab Singh Gill and Baldev Singh here announced the conviction, reversing a decision of a lower court in Patiala acquitting Sidhu in 1999.
The court would announce the sentence Dec 6. Lawyers said Sidhu could be sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment.
Sidhu was accused of causing the death of Gurnam Singh in Patiala, 90 km from here, in 1988. Sidhu was born in Patiala Oct 20, 1963.
The former cricketer and a friend had picked up a fight with Gurnam over the parking of a vehicle at a Patiala market. This led to a scuffle in which Gurjit was given blows by Sidhu and his friend.
He received injuries after he fell to the ground. He died of shock following the incident.
While Sidhu's lawyers claimed that the scuffle was unintentional and that the victim died a 'natural death' due to heart attack, doctors who conducted the postmortem had said the victim had head injuries.
A lower court in Patiala acquitted Sidhu. The Punjab government and the victim's family went to the high court against that judgment.
Sidhu is a Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) MP from the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. He has established himself as a cricket commentator.
Sidhu played for India from 1983 to 1999. He made his Test debut against the West Indies in Ahmedabad in November 1983 and his last match was against New Zealand at Hamilton in January 1999.
Sidhu's conviction by the high court will be a jolt to the Akali Dal-BJP alliance in Punjab, with state assembly elections just three months away.
Sidhu had been pleading since 1988 that he had no intention to kill Gurnam Singh and the whole incident was unintentional.
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