In­dian Supreme Court to hear case of Gur­d­wara Gu­rudong­mar af­ter dis­turb­ing re­ports on so­cial me­dia about re­moval of Sikh items of wor­ship from a seven-decade old shrine in Sikkim by Bud­dhists want­ing to con­vert it into a monastery.

On his sec­ond day as the Chief Jus­tice of In­dia, in a PIL from a young Sikh lawyer from Mum­bai, the Supreme Court of In­dia has de­cided to hear the case of re­moval of Sikh items of wor­ship, in­clud­ing the revered Guru Granth Sahib from a Gur­d­wara Gu­rudong­mar Sahib in Sikkim amidst so­cial me­dia re­ports that that the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion had threat­ened to de­mol­ish the Gur­d­wara and re­place it with a Bud­dhist monastery.  The pe­ti­tion­ers have prayed for a sta­tus quo prayer with proper no­tice to the Sikh com­mu­nity for any at­tempted ren­o­va­tion or re­design­ing of the said Gur­d­wara.

The court has asked the pe­ti­tioner to de­liver a copy of the pe­ti­tion to the stand­ing coun­sel of the Sikkim gov­ern­ment. 

Leg­end has it that the first mas­ter of the Sikhs, Guru Nanak vis­ited the place and that the Gur­d­wara Sahib is in ex­is­tence for the last more than 7 decades, even be­fore Sikkim be­came a part of In­dia in the early sev­en­ties of the last cen­tury.

““Once we get an ad in­terim stay from the Supreme court, we will gar­ner his­tor­i­cal ev­i­dence to sup­port the con­tention that it is a his­tor­i­cal shrine of the Sikhs.” Am­rit­pal Singh Khalsa, pe­ti­tioner” 

Speak­ing ex­clu­sively to WSN, lawyer Am­rit­pal Singh said that “once we get an ad in­terim stay from the Supreme court, we will gar­ner his­tor­i­cal ev­i­dence to sup­port the con­tention that it is a his­tor­i­cal shrine of the Sikhs.” My love and re­spect for the Sikh re­li­gion and the ur­gency of the mat­ter prompted me to reach Delhi and ap­peal to the high­est court of the land, he fur­ther added.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court com­pris­ing Jus­tice P C Pant and Jus­tice D Y Chan­dra­chud sought to know from the pe­ti­tion­ers -Am­rit­pal Singh Khalsa and Delhi based ac­tivist Ajmer Singh Rand­hawa as to why they had not ap­proached the High Court but lawyer Am­rit­pal Singh em­pha­sized the ur­gency of the sit­u­a­tion and thus the court is likely to hear the pe­ti­tion to­mor­row.

“World Sikh News ap­peals to mem­bers of the com­mu­nity to come out with his­toric, aca­d­e­mic or ad­min­is­tra­tive ev­i­dence to con­firm the sta­tus of the Gur­d­wara Sahib in Sikkim.” 

World Sikh News ap­peals to mem­bers of the com­mu­nity to come out with his­toric, aca­d­e­mic or ad­min­is­tra­tive ev­i­dence to con­firm the sta­tus of the Gur­d­wara Sahib in Sikkim, which is also known as Gur­d­wara Nanak Lama Sahib. 

It is note­wor­thy that nei­ther the SGPC del­e­ga­tion nor a team of the Sikh Chan­nel was al­lowed by the Sikkim gov­ern­ment to reach the Gur­d­wara Sahib.

It is sur­pris­ing that peace-lov­ing Bud­dhists should re­sort to such un­law­ful and unso­cial acts hurt­ing the sen­ti­ments of the Sikh com­mu­nity.

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While the com­mu­nity big­wigs in Delhi and Am­rit­sar were still pon­der­ing over dis­turb­ing so­cial me­dia re­ports of re­moval of Sikh items of wor­ship from the said Gur­d­wara, Am­rit­pal Singh Khalsa trav­elled from Mum­bai to pe­ti­tion an ur­gent hear­ing from the Supreme Court of In­dia.