New
Delhi, Jan 18
The Supreme Court Thursday reserved its verdict on
cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu's petition seeking a
stay on his conviction in an 18-year-old case of unintentional
killing of a man in Patiala in a traffic brawl 18 years ago.
A bench of judges G.P. Mathur and R.V. Raveendran reserved the
verdict after completion of arguments by all sides on Sidhu's plea,
aimed at winning a chance to run the upcoming by-election for
Amritsar Lok Sabha seat that he vacated after his conviction by the
Punjab and Haryana High Court last month.
Sidhu was handed down a suspended three-year imprisonment sentence
for causing the death of a 65-year-old man in a road rage incident
in Patiala in 1988.
Opposing the petition, the Punjab government's counsel Sushil Kumar
said the staying Sidhu's conviction to enable him run a
parliamentary poll would set a "wrong precedent".
A convict must not be granted an opportunity to participate in the
electoral process, Kumar asserted.
Contending that Sidhu could not be granted relief merely on the
ground that his conviction was coming in the way of contesting the
polls, he said: "If Sidhu had not resigned he would have continued
as MP. He took moral ground to resign after conviction and now wants
to contest the polls. If the conviction is stayed by this court he
would go to public saying he has been exonerated by the apex court."
Senior counsel Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for complainant Jaswinder
Singh, a relative of the victim, said: "Never in the last 57 years a
conviction has been stayed by this court and if it happens it would
open a door for many politicians convicted in criminal cases to
approach the court to contest the elections."
The bench intervened and said "this court is not powerless to grant
relief to a person in a situation if it prima facie appears that the
conviction and sentence awarded by the high court was erroneous."
Sidhu's counsel Harish Salve Wednesday had pleaded that his client
deserved a stay on his conviction to contest the by-election as he
had resigned without waiting for disqualification by the house.
Salve said Sidhu's case totally stood on a different footing as at
the time of the incident he was not in public life and was a
cricketer, and had not abused any public office.
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