In Barrack No.10 of Patiala Jail, ‘inmate’ Navjot Sidhu did this on first night of prison stay

After being sent to prison for a year over a 1988 road-rage incident, Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu chose to skip dinner on his first night in prison, sources were quoted as saying to news agency PTI.

Lodged in Barrack No.10 at the Patiala Central Jail in Punjab, Sidhu is housed with four other prisoners. Since he had already taken his dinner, Sidhu decided against having his meal at the prison, sources further told PTI.

As a part of his rigorous one-year sentence, the 58-year-old Sidhu will also be required to work in prison. Incidentally, Shiromani Akali Dal leader and Sidhu’s political rival Bikram Singh Majithia is lodged at the Central Jail over a drug case. Sidhu had stood against Majithia from Amritsar East in this year’s Punjab state assembly polls. Both of them lost to AAP candidate Jeevan Jyot Kaur.

On Friday, the Congress leader surrendered in a Patiala court, a day after the Supreme Court sentenced Sidhu to one year in prison. This development came moments after Sidhu had approached the apex court asking more time for surrender on medical grounds.

Sidhu was involved in a 34-year-old road rage incident which resulted in the death of a 65-year-old man, Gurnam Singh. After allowing a review petition from the victim’s family, the SC added a one-year jail term to Sidhu’s sentence along with a fine of Rs 1,000, which was already imposed by the SC. “We have allowed a review application on the issue of the sentence. In addition to the fine imposed, we impose a sentence of imprisonment one one year to be undergone by respondent 1 (Sidhu),” Live Law quoted Justice Kaul as saying in the operative part of the judgment.

On December 27, 1988, Sidhu and his friend Rupinder Singh Sandhu, a co-accused in the case, parked a Gypsy car in the middle of the road. On being asked to remove the car by Gurnam Singh, who was driving a Maruti car, Sidhu got down from his car and started beating up Gurnam Singh at the crossing, while removing Singh’s car keys before running away. By the time Singh was brought to the hospital, he was declared dead.