While the Gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra has tem­porar­ily buck­led un­der the pres­sure of Sikhs and promised to keep the new Takht Hazur Sahib Act 2024 in abeyance, the last word is still not out. Coun­ter­ing the wrong im­pres­sion con­veyed by the gov­ern­ment through so­cial me­dia that the new Act is based on Jus­tice Jag­mo­han Singh Bha­ti­a’s Re­port, which man­dated to look into the la­cu­nae of the Nanded Sikh Gur­d­wara Sachk­hand Shri Hazur Apcha­lana­gar Sahib Act, 1956,  Ad­vo­cate Dal­jeet Singh Bha­tia, son of late Judge, de­bunks the gov­ern­men­t’s con­tention and nails its lies in this Open Let­ter to the Chief Min­is­ter of Ma­ha­rash­tra Ek­nath Shinde, call­ing the state me­dia cam­paign “en­tirely mis­lead­ing and con­cocted” and hop­ing that the gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra will start course cor­rec­tion with­out de­lay A WSN Ex­clu­sive.

DEAR CHIEF MIN­IS­TER EK­NATH SHINDE: Sat Sri Akal.                      In a re­cent de­vel­op­ment, the Ma­ha­rash­tra Gov­ern­ment has ap­proved a new Act that has sparked sig­nif­i­cant con­tro­versy and con­cern among the Sikh com­mu­nity, and un­der­stand­ably so. This Act os­ten­si­bly aims to re­place the ex­ist­ing Nanded Sikh Gur­d­wara Sachk­hand Shri Hazu­rApcha­lana­gar Sahib Act, 1956.

The Ma­ha­rash­tra Chief Min­is­ter’s Of­fice through their of­fi­cial so­cial me­dia han­dles has prop­a­gated that to re­place the ex­ist­ing Act, the com­mit­tee led by Jus­tice Jag­mo­han Singh Bha­tia (retd.) was ap­pointed, giv­ing the false im­pres­sion that the new Act was drafted based on the re­port of the Com­mit­tee led by Jus­tice Jag­mo­han Singh Bha­tia and 3 other mem­bers.

It sad­dens me to point out that the fact of the mat­ter is that all the sug­ges­tions given by the Com­mit­tee headed by my late fa­ther, who painstak­ingly pre­pared the re­port have been ig­nored by the Gov­ern­ment. On the con­trary, to achieve the ul­te­rior mo­tive of get­ting ab­solute con­trol over the Sachk­hand Gur­d­wara, Nanded, the State Cab­i­net has ap­proved leg­is­la­tion, with­out dis­cus­sion, with­out de­lib­er­a­tion, which not only threat­ens re­li­gious au­ton­omy but also vi­o­lates the Con­sti­tu­tion of In­dia, which guar­an­tees free­dom to every re­li­gious de­nom­i­na­tion to es­tab­lish and main­tain its in­sti­tu­tions and man­age its af­fairs in the mat­ters of re­li­gion.

The Jus­tice Bha­tia Com­mit­tee was con­sti­tuted, nearly 10 years ago, un­der a Gov­ern­ment Res­o­lu­tion dated 27 June 2014 to study and rec­om­mend changes to the ex­ist­ing Act. The Com­mit­tee called views and sug­ges­tions from the mem­bers of the Sikh com­mu­nity and also had meet­ings with the “Panj Pyaras” of Sachk­hand Gur­d­wara, Nanded, and also mem­bers of the Sikh com­mu­nity at Nanded, Mum­bai, Navi-Mum­bai and Thane.

The panel sub­mit­ted its re­port in Au­gust 2014 wherein it con­cluded that the ex­ist­ing 1956 Act was ob­so­lete, out­dated, un­de­mo­c­ra­tic, and in­ad­e­quate for proper ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment of the Gur­d­wara. The Com­mit­tee also opined that no per­son, who is not a Sikh, should be a mem­ber of the Board or the Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee and should have no role to play in the man­age­ment and ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Gur­d­wara. Thus, the com­mit­tee sug­gested that the ex­ist­ing Act of 1956 be re­pealed and re­placed by a new Act.

The Com­mit­tee also pre­pared and sub­mit­ted a Draft Bill for the en­act­ment of the new Act, which was named as “The Takhat Sachk­hand Shri Hazur Abchal­na­gar Sahib Gur­d­wara Act”.

Un­der the ex­ist­ing Act of 1956, out of 17 mem­bers of the Board, only 3 mem­bers are elected through the de­mo­c­ra­tic method of elec­tion, whereas the re­main­ing 14 mem­bers are nom­i­nated. The Com­mit­tee sug­gested that the Gur­d­wara Board shall con­sist of 21 mem­bers, who shall be “Am­rit­d­hari Sikhs” with a min­i­mum ed­u­ca­tion of Higher Sec­ondary Cer­tifi­cate Ex­am­i­na­tion for mem­bers and grad­u­a­tion, in case of the of­fice bear­ers. It had also pro­posed that only Ke­shad­hari Sikhs would be the vot­ers and as many as 18 out of the 21 mem­bers would be elected through the bal­lot from amongst the Sikhs.

In the last few weeks, the Sikh world has been mis­in­formed and mis­guided to be­lieve that the re­port sub­mit­ted by the Com­mit­tee led by Jus­tice Jag­mo­han Singh Bha­tia (Retd.) was con­sid­ered for draft­ing the new Act by the pre­sent Ma­ha­rash­tra gov­ern­ment.

While prepar­ing the new Takht Hazur Sahib Act, the Gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra has com­pletely ig­nored the re­port sub­mit­ted by the Com­mit­tee. 

Ad­vo­cate Dal­jeet Singh, son of Late Jus­tice Jag­mo­han Singh Bha­tia

Far from it! While prepar­ing the new Act, the Gov­ern­ment com­pletely ig­nored the re­port sub­mit­ted by the Com­mit­tee. Un­der the new pro­posed Act by your gov­ern­ment, the Board con­sists of 17 mem­bers, out of which 14 will be nom­i­nated and only 3 will be elected, as is the case in the ex­ist­ing Act of 1956.

To make mat­ters worse, your Gov­ern­ment takes a step fur­ther to have ab­solute con­trol over the man­age­ment and af­fairs of the Gur­d­wara. It has been pro­posed that out of the 14 mem­bers to be nom­i­nated, 2 will be nom­i­nated by S.G.P.C., Am­rit­sar, and rest 12 mem­bers will be nom­i­nated by the Gov­ern­ment, which may in­clude non-Sikhs also. While I have seen cer­tain un­con­firmed clar­i­fi­ca­tions in the me­dia that only Sikhs will be nom­i­nated, the key point is that un­der what con­sti­tu­tional au­thor­ity does the gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra as­sume the right to take full con­trol of the Takht Man­age­ment Board?

If the gov­ern­ment is al­lowed to have its say, 12 mem­bers out of 17 will be po­lit­i­cal ap­pointees of the rul­ing party, and thus your gov­ern­ment and suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments of any po­lit­i­cal party will have ab­solute con­trol over the man­age­ment of the his­toric Takht.

I find it hard to un­der­stand that the gov­ern­ment has not pon­dered to ap­pre­ci­ate that such gross in­ter­fer­ence by the State will never be ac­cept­able to the Sikh com­mu­nity. 

I find it hard to un­der­stand that the gov­ern­ment has not pon­dered to ap­pre­ci­ate that such gross in­ter­fer­ence by the State will never be ac­cept­able to the Sikh com­mu­nity. While your gov­ern­ment has as­sured the Sikh com­mu­nity that the new pro­posal will be re­con­sid­ered, it will be per­ti­nent to see the stand of the gov­ern­ment when this mat­ter is taken up by the Au­rangabad bench of the Bom­bay High Court in the com­ing days.

Un­mis­tak­ably, the new Act has been ap­proved with­out con­sid­er­ing the re­port of the Com­mit­tee, which records the con­cerns and sug­ges­tions of the Sikh com­mu­nity in de­tail. The State Gov­ern­ment has also failed to con­sult the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Sikh com­mu­nity be­fore tak­ing such a big de­ci­sion which has hurt the sen­ti­ments of the Sikh com­mu­nity.

The Sikh com­mu­nity in Nanded, Mum­bai, and the rest of the world, holds with bated breath pon­der­ing over the next move of your gov­ern­ment. 

The protests from the Sikh com­mu­nity go be­yond sim­ple ad­min­is­tra­tive con­trol and ad­dresses more fun­da­men­tal con­cerns about ho­n­our, cus­toms, and the in­vi­o­la­bil­ity of places of wor­ship. It is a re­minder to the Ma­ha­rash­tra gov­ern­ment and oth­ers of the im­por­tance of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, em­pa­thy, and con­sid­er­a­tion for com­mu­nity sen­si­tiv­i­ties in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of re­li­gious en­ti­ties.

The Sikh com­mu­nity in Nanded, Mum­bai, and the rest of the world, holds with bated breath pon­der­ing over the next move of your gov­ern­ment. I hope and pray that the Gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra will not den­i­grate the his­toric­ity and con­tri­bu­tion of the Sikhs and Takht Hazur Sahib in Nanded, which is blessed to be the fi­nal do­main of Guru Gob­ind Singh and is revered as the cen­tre from where the call to obey Guru Granth Sahib as the Guru was made in 1708.

Sin­cerely

Dal­jeet Singh
Ad­vo­cate, Bom­bay High Court