Em­bar­rassed by the leak­age of the ex­haus­tive re­port of the Fact-find­ing Com­mit­tee on 267 Miss­ing Sa­roops of Guru Granth Sahib, putting up a brave face, the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee Pres­i­dent Gob­ind Singh Lon­gowal re­leased the re­port with af­fi­davits, on the web­site of the SGPC on the in­ter­ven­ing night of 6/​7 Oc­to­ber 2020.  Sikh cir­cles have been de­mand­ing the re­port since long. With the farm­ers’ re­volt on, this will be an­other front which will catch the at­ten­tion of the Pan­thic forces and fur­ther push the Badal Dal and the SGPC lead­er­ship into a cor­ner.

THE THREE-MEM­BER FACT-FIND­ING COM­MIS­SION INTO THE 267 miss­ing Sa­roops case, formed un­der the di­rec­tive of Akal Takht Jathedar Gi­ani Harpreet Singh, yes­ter­day re­leased its full re­port, with an­nex­ures mak­ing a plethora of rec­om­men­da­tions to the Jathedar Akal Takht and the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee.

Nor­mally, the SGPC con­tains only re­li­gious mat­ters, but this time around, right on top of the site, the re­ports are avail­able as pdf files.  The full re­ports have been up­loaded onto the web­site of the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Par­band­hak Com­mit­tee -www.sgpc.net.

Akal Takht Jathedar Gi­ani Harpreet Singh, au­tho­rised by the SGPC through its res­o­lu­tion dated 17 July 2020, set up a Com­mit­tee of ex­perts led by lawyer-ac­tivist Dr Es­har Singh, as­sisted by Pun­jab and Haryana High Court lawyers Dr Harpreet Kaur and Harleen Kaur and who sub­mit­ted the ex­haus­tive 267-page re­port with 157 pages of an­nex­ures.

Af­ter go­ing through all doc­u­ments avail­able in the Pub­li­ca­tion and Print­ing De­part­ment, which had been sealed un­der or­der of Jathedar Akal Takht Sahib, the record­ing was writ­ten and oral ev­i­dence as re­quired, this in­ves­tiga­tive team sub­mit­ted the re­port.

In its ini­tial re­marks, the team has stated the SGPC has never taken care in han­dling the work of the pub­li­ca­tion de­part­ment, though it was to be han­dled with top pri­or­ity.

The team has ob­served that “No Com­mit­tee is good or bad, it is the peo­ple who oc­cupy posts, who due to neg­li­gence, in­abil­ity or lack of faith, com­mit­ment and truth­ful­ness, put a ques­tion mark on the ca­pac­ity and rep­u­ta­tion of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. They have also ob­served that the Five Singh Sahibans were not ap­prised of the anom­alies of the work­ing of the Pub­li­ca­tion De­part­ment as far as re­lat­ing to the print­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion of Sa­roops of Guru Granth Sahib.

From the files re­ceived from Akal Takht Sahib, the en­quiry com­mis­sion came to know that one Sarab­jit Singh Verka through Jus­tice Ajit Singh Bains (Retd), Chair­man, Pun­jab Hu­man Rights Or­gan­i­sa­tion, Chandi­garh had brought to the no­tice of Chief Sec­re­tary Pun­jab on 26 June 2020 about the 267 miss­ing Sa­roops.

The re­port fur­ther records that he also ap­prised the Chief Sec­re­tary that, “80 Sa­roops got burnt and spoilt in May 2016. He ap­prised that due to po­lit­i­cal rea­sons, an en­quiry into this was not done and se­cretly these Sa­roops were dis­posed of (Saskar or Agan Bhet). They were not shown in records and no par­don was pleaded for the guilt as per the Sikh Maryada. A copy of this was also sent to Akal Takht Sahib.”

The Com­mis­sion has also recorded that a let­ter was re­ceived from Kan­waljit Singh, a for­mer as­sis­tant su­per­vi­sor who stated in the let­ter to the pub­li­ca­tion de­part­ment dated 21-May-2020 that he is ready to sub­mit the amount of the 267 miss­ing Sa­roops. The same let­ter was writ­ten to the Chief Sec­re­tary on 28 May 2020. A few days be­fore his re­tire­ment he wrote to the SGPC Pres­i­dent Gob­ind Singh Lon­gowal, as to how all of­fi­cials vi­o­lated their pow­ers and were men­tally ha­rass­ing him and that he was be­ing pres­sur­ized to sign on pa­pers which he never wanted to. He also re­quested the pres­i­dent to get his dues of prov­i­dent fund and gra­tu­ity paid.

SGPC em­ployee Kan­waljit Singh also re­quested Sukhchain Singh Gill, Com­mis­sioner of Po­lice, Am­rit­sar on 28 June 2020 to file a com­plaint about the miss­ing Sa­roops mis­man­age­ment, vi­o­la­tion of pow­ers by of­fi­cials of SGPC, ha­rass­ment and forc­ing him to sign on pa­pers against his will. He pleaded to Gi­ani Harpreet Singh on 15 July 2020 to set up an en­quiry on the is­sue of burnt Sa­roops case of May 19, 2016.

The key ques­tion still re­mains unan­swered. This en­quiry re­port has no ref­er­ence to this. Where did the miss­ing Sa­roops go? Nei­ther fear of God or Guru was able to con­vince the wit­nesses and the peo­ple ques­tioned by the Com­mis­sion to come up with these de­tails as those in­volved have main­tained a deathly si­lence on the mat­ter.

The Dr Es­har Singh En­quiry Com­mis­sion has made many de­tailed rec­om­men­da­tions to the SGPC re­gard­ing print­ing, pub­li­ca­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion and up­keep of Sa­roops of Guru Granth Sahib.

Print­ing and Pub­li­ca­tion Premises to be fully au­to­mated: Among the pri­mary rec­om­men­da­tions is that the premises for the print­ing of Sa­roops should be equipped with mod­ern tech­nol­ogy and ma­chin­ery with a sep­a­rate walled build­ing with ad­e­quate se­cu­rity mea­sures. The per­son in charge must be fully re­spon­si­ble and ac­count­able for the work at Gur­d­wara Ram­sar Sahib, The build­ing is to be di­vided into 3 sec­tions han­dling print­ing, bind­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion with all tasks fully com­put­erised.  A proper process to be de­signed and fol­lowed for proof­read­ing and cod­ing.

Print­ing and Bind­ing: The com­mis­sion sug­gested to make sure we use the best qual­ity pa­per. A spe­cial men­tion has been made that an in­ter­nal au­di­tor and any mem­ber of the au­dit com­mit­tee should not be in­volved in the process of pa­per and ink pro­cure­ment. The pa­per should be pur­chased di­rectly from the man­u­fac­turer in­stead of the agents. The record of ink and wastage pa­per to be prop­erly main­tained and all pa­pers with er­rors should be col­lected and recorded and then dis­posed of as per the de­fined process. The ledger has to be metic­u­lously main­tained while trans­fer­ring the pa­pers to the bind­ing sec­tion. A monthly au­dit and re­port have to be pre­pared by the As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary and the Chief Sec­re­tary is to re­view the same. It is even spec­i­fied that the racks should be made of wood or steel and not iron.

Spe­cial Num­ber­ing Sys­tem: A spe­cial Num­ber­ing sys­tem to be fol­lowed which should be men­tioned on the white sheet in the end. The num­ber should have the lot num­ber, to­tal count, date of pro­cure­ment from the press and a spe­cial stamp.

Pro­cure­ment Team and Process: A spe­cial terms and con­di­tions for the peo­ple and man­age­ment in­volved in pro­cure­ment, print­ing, pub­lish­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion have to be made which will have spe­cial in­struc­tions and guide­lines.

Weekly Stock Au­dit: A weekly stock au­dit to be done and proper sig­na­tures and ap­provals of SGPC to be taken be­fore hand­ing over the Sa­roops. No over­writ­ing with pen on du­pli­cate re­ceipts or use of pen­cil is per­mit­ted. All records to be com­put­erised and to be placed on­line.

Man­ag­ing Birdh -Worn Out Sa­roops: A record of the Birdh/​Old Sa­roops must be main­tained by a sep­a­rate de­part­ment and all proper ledgers to be main­tained re­gard­ing Saskar of such Sa­roops and guide­lines for the same to be fol­lowed.

Quar­terly Re­port and Ran­dom Checks: The SGPC Pres­i­dent should pre­sent all data in a re­port to be pre­pared on a quar­terly ba­sis, re­lat­ing to Gur­d­waras and Sa­roops of Guru Granth Sahib, in­clud­ing de­tails of how many were given with pay­ment and how many with­out pay­ment. Jathedars and Singh Sahibans must con­duct ran­dom checks to en­sure that the proper process is be­ing fol­lowed reg­u­larly by all con­cerned.

It is sig­nif­i­cant and deeply con­cern­ing that though the Fact-Find­ing Com­mis­sion has at­tempted to point out the loop­holes in the sys­tem and rec­om­mended the way for­ward, the most im­por­tant ques­tion as to where the miss­ing Sa­roops went still re­mains unan­swered.

The En­quiry Com­mis­sion has at­tempted to look into the fu­ture by urg­ing the SGPC to take the sup­port of In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­ogy ex­perts and build a track­ing cen­tre for the Sa­roops of Guru Granth Sahib. The de­tails of all Sa­roops in the world should be col­lected and main­tained in this track­ing cen­tre. While the dis­tri­b­u­tion of Sa­roops to the San­gat -all re­quired names, ad­dresses with iden­ti­fi­ca­tion de­tails of in­di­vid­u­als and or­gan­i­sa­tions, pho­tographs of the place and a promis­sory note from the re­ceiver that proper re­spect and sanc­tity will be main­tained has to be taken and pre­served.

The key ques­tion still re­mains unan­swered. This en­quiry re­port has no ref­er­ence to this. Where did the miss­ing Sa­roops go? Nei­ther fear of God or Guru was able to con­vince the wit­nesses and the peo­ple ques­tioned by the Com­mis­sion to come up with these de­tails as those in­volved have main­tained a deathly si­lence on the mat­ter.

The Akal Takht Sahib, the SGPC and Pan­thic or­gan­i­sa­tions will have to take this up in a way that there is no fur­ther em­bar­rass­ment to the com­mu­nity.

Gurmeet Singh is a so­cial, re­li­gious and hu­man rights ac­tivist based in Delhi. He takes a keen in­ter­est in Sikh af­fairs and keeps abreast of Pan­thic de­vel­op­ments.