Undergoing one-year rigorous imprisonment in a 1988 road rage case, the cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu reportedly entered in an argument with his fellow inmates over the use of a canteen card. Following this, Sidhu’s three fellow inmates were shifted to another barrack. Currently, Sidhu is lodged in Patiala Central jail.
Earlier, there were allegations that Sidhu’s fellow prisoners have complained the jail authorities regarding his behaviour, and the jail administration, which is concerned about Sidhu’s security, has changed the former Minister’s barrack. It was also alleged that Sidhu had a brawl with some inmates over the use of his canteen card.
However, Punjab Jails Minister Harjot Singh Bains on Wednesday evening clarified that no brawl has taken place.
Denied all claims, Bains told a news agency, “No brawl took place. It was a four-day-old trivial issue. Every inmate is issued a card. Sidhu says an inmate had drawn ration on his card for himself.”
At the same time, the Minister made it clear that the Governm,ent would initiate action against the media channels for sharing wrong news. “Legal notice will be sent to the channels that run such news (that Sidhu had entered in a brawl with fellow inmates),” he said.
Jails sources informed The Pioneer that Sidhu has been staying with five other inmates in a barrack. Because of security concerns, Sidhu has been asked to work from his barrack. Just like every jail inmate, Sidhu has also been issued a canteen card to make some purchases of necessities from the jail canteen.
The jail sources maintained that when Sidhu has to order something from the jail canteen, he has to depend on fellow prisoners. For the same, Sidhu has to give his card. In the present case, one of the fellow prisoners, to whom Sidhu has given a card to make some purchases for him, also bought a couple of things for himself with Sidhu's card to which the Congress leader objected.
Taking note, the Jail Administration has immediately changed the barracks of three prisoners lodged with Sidhu. Now, only two prisoners are sharing the barrack with Sidhu.
However, jail authorities have maintained that the change of barrack is a routine process.
Three-time former MP and former MLA, Sidhu was sentenced to one-year jail term by the Supreme Court in an old road rage case. He was accused of hitting a 65-year-old man, Gurnam Singh, in Patiala in a road rage incident on December 27, 1988 — that led to his death.
The trial court had acquitted Sidhu, but the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the lower court’s order and convicted him under Section 304 Part II of the Indian Penal Code for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The High Court had later sentenced him to three-year in jail.
Sidhu had appealed the High Court’s verdict in the Supreme Court, which granted him bail while also suspending his jail sentence in 2007. This enabled him to contest Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar.
In May 2018, the Apex Court had held Sidhu guilty of the offence of “voluntarily causing hurt” to the man, but spared him a jail term and imposed a fine of Rs 1,000. Later, Gurnam Singh's family had sought a review of the judgement, which was allowed by the SC.
This year, in May, the Supreme Court had sentenced Sidhu to one-year rigorous imprisonment in the case saying that any undue sympathy in imposing an inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system and undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law.