A sit­ting mem­ber of the Paramjit Singh Sarna-led Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi -Kar­tar Singh Chawla has brought to light, through a pe­ti­tion filed three weeks ago in the Delhi High Court that DS­GMC has nei­ther pre­sented to the Gen­eral house nor pub­lished the Au­di­tor’s Re­port of DS­GMC for fi­nan­cial years 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19. Tak­ing cog­ni­sance of the pe­ti­tion and the fact that no­body rep­re­sented the DS­GMC on 11 Au­gust, Jus­tice Ms Rekha Palli has fixed the next date of hear­ing on 16 Au­gust 2021, adding a new di­men­sion to the on­go­ing Sikh elec­toral bat­tle in Delhi. WSN Delhi Desk’s Gurmeet Singh re­ports.

AMIDST THE ELEC­TION­EER­ING PROCESS OF THE DS­GMC, which are sched­uled for 22 Au­gust 2021, a bat­tle is on in courts to take on the Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa-led com­mit­tee for its acts of omis­sion and com­mis­sion over the last four years. De­spite no­tice to the re­spon­dents -DS­GMC and the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tion, no af­fi­davit has been filed.

WSN Delhi Desk has learnt that the pe­ti­tion was filed in the Delhi High Court be­fore 8 Au­gust 2021 when the of­fi­cial no­ti­fi­ca­tion of the date of elec­tions to be held on 22 Au­gust was re­leased by the Di­rec­torate. One hear­ing had al­ready hap­pened on 9 Au­gust and the fol­low up was on 11 Au­gust when the or­der came. 

Sur­pris­ingly, the pe­ti­tioner has sought that, “the elec­tions should not be held till the au­dited fi­nan­cial re­ports of the last three years are pub­lished fol­low­ing the scheme of Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Act, 1971.”

The Delhi High Court has noted the con­cern of the pe­ti­tioner that he has been chas­ing the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee for the last two years but there has been no re­sponse.

While the tim­ing of the or­der has brought the Sirsa team and Sar­nas into an­other so­cial me­dia bat­tle, what is be­ing missed is that why the DS­GMC does not take own­er­ship and does not show trans­parency in fill­ing and pre­sent­ing fi­nan­cial ac­counts or any other re­quired doc­u­ments. There is a huge penalty ap­plic­a­ble on non-com­pli­ance with this and all these penal­ties and le­gal ex­penses are be­ing used from Gur­d­wara Funds which are ac­tu­ally to be used for the wel­fare of the Sikhs. 

It is also a re­flec­tion on the DS­GMC-af­fil­i­ated Singh Sab­has and the Sikh San­gat in Delhi that through­out these years, the San­gat did not ask any ques­tions, leave alone in­con­ve­nient ques­tions to the DS­GMC lead­ers, while they con­tin­ued to take them for a ride.  

It is also a re­flec­tion on the DS­GMC-af­fil­i­ated Singh Sab­has and the Sikh San­gat in Delhi that through­out these years, the San­gat did not ask any ques­tions, leave alone in­con­ve­nient ques­tions to the DS­GMC lead­ers, while they con­tin­ued to take them for a ride.  

In ad­di­tion to the above three years, the re­port for 2019-20 and 2020-21 is also pend­ing. It raises ques­tions not only on the ex­ec­u­tive of DS­GMC but all 55 mem­bers of DS­GMC. 

Clearly, the DS­GMC com­mit­tee is en­gulfed with gross cor­rup­tion, acute mis­man­age­ment, ma­jor model code of con­duct vi­o­la­tions, un­nec­es­sary mud­sling­ing, and many le­gal cases. 

It may be men­tioned here that all DS­GMC ac­counts were men­tioned every month in the DS­GMC news mag­a­zine -Sis Ganj. How­ever, since the on­com­ing of the Covid19-pan­demic, the mag­a­zine has not seen the light of the day.

This is just the tip of the ice­berg. Many more is­sues are likely to emerge dur­ing the elec­tion­eer­ing and even af­ter. Presently, the DS­GMC which has been in the past has been pa­tro­n­ised by po­lit­i­cal par­ties, state and Union gov­ern­ments are gasp­ing for breath in the ju­di­ciary. His­tor­i­cally speak­ing, DS­GMC has been do­ing the rig­ma­role of the courts too with­out much gain as has been seen in the mak­ing of fresh elec­toral rolls. Will it be dif­fer­ent in the fu­ture?