The Indian Supreme Court has sentenced former cricketer and Congress leader Navjot Singh Sadhu to one year rigorous imprisonment in a nearly 30-year-old case.
Sadhu was accused of beating a man named Garnam Singh in a fit of rage, after which he succumbed to his injuries. When the incident took place on December 27, 1988, Sadhu was a key member of the Indian national cricket team.
Although the incident took place in the 1980s, he was convicted in 1999 after a lengthy trial. Fifty-eight-year-old Sadhu said in a tweet after the verdict that he respects the verdict.
A Haryana Punjab court had sentenced Sadhu to three years imprisonment for appearing before the court on behalf of Garnam Singh's family. However, the apex court commuted the sentence on Sadhu's appeal.
The Supreme Court held that Sadhu did not use any weapon during the beating and that it was an unintentional killing. Therefore, this sentence should be changed to a fine of one thousand Indian rupees. The victim's family had appealed to the court for a harsher sentence.
Sadhu argued that there was no evidence that the man had been beaten to death. He said there could be a cause for death. Sadhu had also accused his family members of maliciously trying to prolong the case out of greed for money.
In the eighties, Navjot Singh Sadhu was a key member of the Indian national team. Opener Sadhu had scored 3202 runs in 51 Test matches. Sadhu had said goodbye to cricket and entered politics and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. However, he later changed his political sympathies and joined the Congress party
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