NEW DELHI, Dec 6: Former Indian international cricketer and opposition party MP Navjot Singh Sidhu was sentenced to three years in jail on Wednesday for killing a man in a road rage outburst nearly two decades ago.

Sidhu was last week found guilty of “culpable homicide not amounting to murder” -- a charge roughly equivalent to manslaughter -- for the 1988 incident.

After the verdict, he resigned as an MP for the Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).

In the pre-sentence hearing, prosecution counsel R. S. Ghai demanded the maximum sentence of 10 years behind bars be handed down.

“The character of a person has nothing to do with granting probation to a person,” he was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India, asserting that the “imposition of an inadequate sentence will do more harm to the justice system”.

Sidhu's defence counsel argued the crime “happened on the spur of the moment” and that “this is a fittest case for imposing a fine”.

Sidhu was found guilty of dragging the victim out of his car and showering him with punches and blows after a road accident. He had previously been acquitted in the case in 1999 by a lower court.

Sidhu played 51 Test matches and 136 one-day internationals between 1983 and 1999, and has been a popular cricket commentator on television channels.

The sentence comes the day after a former Indian coal minister was given life behind bars for conspiracy in the abduction and murder of a former aide.—AFP