SGPC fails to raise Sehajdhari row with PM

Perneet Singh

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 29

While the SGPC raised a string of demands before Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent visit to the Golden Temple here on Monday, it didn’t touch the crucial issue of the new SGPC House.

It hasn’t come into existence even three-and-a-half years after the SGPC elections due to a legal tangle over the Sehajdhari row. However, the SGPC has defended itself, saying the matter is sub-judice.

A section of Sikh leaders today said the SGPC should have exploited the opportunity and taken up the matter with the PM.

SGPC member Bibi Kiranjot Kaur posted on a social networking site: “All demands put before PM Modi except the most relevant...pass the notification issued by the last NDA government, struck down by the high court, into an Act and constitute the SGPC General House.”

Talking to The Tribune, Kiranjot said, “The Punjab and Haryana High Court had quashed the notification, contending that it was passed by the executive. The court had clarified that it is the legislature that has the power to make a change. Therefore now, the SGPC should get the amendment done in the light of the court’s judgment and withdraw their case from the Supreme Court.”

She felt that the SGPC should have done proper groundwork before submitting its demands to the PM. “The SAD and BJP are still alliance partners, then what is the problem in resolving the matter?” she said.

Dal Khalsa leader Kanwar Pal Singh said the SGPC has “wittingly or unwittingly forgotten” to take up the issue that directly relates to its own existence and the fate of its present House.

He said the notification by the previous NDA government, which had barred Sehajdharis from voting in the SGPC elections, was quashed by the high court in 2011 with an argument that the Centre had not turned the notification into law after so many years.

He said, “It was the right time and opportunity for the SGPC to ask Narendra Modi to make a law barring Sehajdharis from voting. This, they have missed.”

SAD (Amritsar) president Simranjit Singh Mann also said the SGPC should have taken up the matter of the new SGPC House with the PM, as it has been hanging fire for almost four years now.

“Keeping silent over the key issue relating to the mini-parliament of Sikhs has led to a sense of alienation in the community,” he said.

SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar said, “Both the cases — the one relating to the Sehajdhari row and the other of the separate gurdwara panel in Haryana — are subjudice. The government has already submitted its reply in court. We didn’t raise these issues as the government can’t interfere in them in the current scenario.”

The SGPC elections were held on September 18, 2011, which was followed by co-option of 15 members on December 5, 2011.

However, the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s December 20, 2011 verdict, quashing the 2003 notification barring Sehajdharis from voting rights in the SGPC elections, plunged the new House into a crisis.

The SGPC later challenged the HC verdict in the Supreme Court. Hearing the SGPC petition on March 30, 2012, the Supreme Court allowed the old SGPC executive (elected in November 2010) to manage gurdwaras and institutions under the SGPC till further orders.

The Supreme Court also stated that the House elected in September 2011 without Sehajdhari Sikhs’ participation could not be allowed to hold its first meeting and elect office-bearers in the light of the Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict. Later, the Supreme Court admitted the SGPC plea challenging the HC verdict in October 2013.