NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday sentenced cricketer-turned-politician and Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu to one year in prison in connection with a 1988 road rage case from Punjab, in which he was let off three years ago with a fine of a meagre ₹1,000.
Enhancing Sidhu’s punishment on a plea filed by the family members of 65-year-old Gurnam Singh, who died in the road rage incident involving Sidhu and his friend Rupinder Singh Sandhu, the apex court handed out the maximum punishment to the former Punjab Congress president under Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The maximum punishment under Section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the IPC is a jail term of one year or a fine of ₹1,000.
Sidhu is the latest in a long line of politicians who have been convicted by courts and sentenced to time in prison.
Here are five high-profile politicians who have been jailed:
J Jayalalithaa
Former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa was found guilty of corruption in September 2014 and was jailed for four years by a special court in Bengaluru. The ruling in an 18-year disproportionate assets case had dealt a blow to the then 66-year-old All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) chief, who had to also pay a fine of ₹10 crore. The actor-turned-politician was the first serving chief minister to lose her post and be sent to jail. However, on 11 May 2015, she was acquitted of all charges by the Karnataka high court.
Shibu Soren
{{/usCountry}}Shibu Soren
{{/usCountry}}The former Union coal minister and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court on 5 December 2006 for his involvement in the 1994 abduction and murder of his private secretary Shashi Nath Jha. Soren was also asked to pay ₹5 lakh to the victim’s mother and daughters as compensation. The JMM leader was later acquitted by the Delhi high court on 22 August 2007 on the basis that the CBI had “miserably failed” to prove the charges against the accused. The verdict was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court in April 2018.
Bangaru Laxman
The former Bharatiya Janata Party national president and ex-Union minister was sentenced to four years in jail by a CBI court in April 2012 for taking a bribe of ₹1 lakh inside the party headquarters after he had been caught on camera by an undercover journalist who was posing as an arms dealer. A CD of the sting operation was later released by a news portal, triggering a political storm in 2001, forcing Laxman to quit as the BJP chief. Laxman was the first politician to be convicted as a result of a sting operation, and the first party president to be sentenced in a corruption case.
A Raja
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader and ex-telecom minister spent 15 months in jail starting 2 February 2011 during the trial of the 2G scam after the CBI charged him and 16 others with cheating and criminal conspiracy to abuse of public office. On 12 May 2012, Raja got bail from the trial court and was among the last to be let out. On 21 December 2017, a special CBI court acquitted all accused in the case.
Suresh Kalmadi
The former Congress parliamentarian, who was the chairman of the organising committee for the controversial 2010 Commonwealth Games, was charged by the Enforcement Directorate along with nine others with criminal conspiracy, forgery, cheating and other offences. He was arrested on 25 April 2011 and was released on bail nine months later.