Navjot Singh Sidhu, former cricketer and former member of Parliament of Bharatiya Janata Party, will file his nomination on behalf of BJP for Amritsar Lok Sabha bypoll on Wednesday.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed Sidhu's sentence by the Punjab and Haryana high court in an 18-year-old road rage murder case.

The high court in its verdict held Sidhu guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder in which Gurnam Singh of Patiala died after an altercation with the cricketer and his friend.

"I will be filing my nomination papers on Wednesday," Sidhu told rediff.com on Tuesday evening when he visited the party headquarters in New Delhi before leaving for Amritsar.

Sidhu earlier thanked party leaders, including former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, party president Rajnath Singh, former deputy prime minister Lal Kishenchand Advani and M Venkaiah Naidu and followed it up with thanks to Harish Salve who argued his case in the Supreme Court.

BJP's general secretary (Punjab) Arun Jaitley said the apex court had taken notice of the moral high ground taken by Sidhu by resigning from his Lok Sabha seat soon after the high court verdict. The court also noticed that there was no link between the case and Sidhu's duties as member of Parliament.

"The court said that the medical evidence did not prove beyond doubt that Gurnam had died of a blow to his head by the cricketer. Nor was he named in the first information report filed four years after the incident," Jaitley explained to the newsmen who wondered how the party could allow Sidhu to contest when the charges against him still persist.

Sidhu, known for his wit and short and snappy answers, refused to be entrapped by newsmen and directed all questions to Jaitley, who has carefully guided Sidhu during the most critical period of his life.

Jaitley, who came close to contesting the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, was all smiles after the verdict of the division bench of the Supreme court on Tuesday morning.