With elec­tions to the gen­eral house of the DS­GMC just two weeks away, elec­tion­eer­ing is gear­ing up. Sirsa con­tin­ues his up­man­ship un­abated, Di­rec­torate main­tains stun­ning si­lence and Sarna goes to court through an as­so­ci­ate who has filed a pe­ti­tion in the Delhi High Court seek­ing a re­strain­ing or­der on the open­ing cer­e­mony of Bala Sahib Hos­pi­tal, al­leg­ing model code of con­duct. WSN re­ports.

IN A PE­TI­TION FILED WITH THE DELHI HIGH COURT, Delhi Sikh res­i­dent Sahib­jit Singh Bindra, con­sid­ered close to Delhi Akali Dal Pres­i­dent Paramjit Singh Sarna, sought a de­lay of the open­ing of the Bala Sahib af­ter the DS­GMC elec­tions sched­uled for 22 Au­gust.

Dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings in the court of Jus­tice Pra­teek Jalan, the judge in­di­cated ver­bally that he was not in­clined to ac­cept the Badal Dal leader Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa plea that they are only per­form­ing Ar­das on 13 Au­gust. Sir­sa’s lawyer Har­ish Mal­ho­tra sub­mit­ted that they are not open­ing the said hos­pi­tal on 7 Au­gust, but would only per­form Ar­das for “ex­ten­sion of beds re­quired in the prepa­ra­tion of fight­ing Covid19 third wave, should it come.”

Re­port­edly, Jus­tice Jalan told the DS­GMC lawyer that per­form­ing Ar­das is pos­si­ble only by hold­ing a func­tion and hold­ing any such func­tion would be a vi­o­la­tion of the Model Code of Con­duct of the DS­GMC elec­tions. 

The Judge also ad­mon­ished the lawyers of the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions for not do­ing enough in the mat­ter of tak­ing steps against vi­o­la­tions of the Model Code of Con­duct and asked them to file an af­fi­davit in the mat­ter by 9 Au­gust 2021.

“We have to bal­ance spir­i­tual feel­ings and free and fair elec­tions.” 

Jus­tice Pra­teek Jalan, Judge, Delhi High Court

Ac­cept­ing the re­quest of the DS­GMC lawyer for an­other date to seek de­tails from his client -Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa, Delhi High Court judge Jus­tice Jalan put the next date of hear­ing for 11 Au­gust 2021.

Op­po­si­tion groups in the DS­GMC elec­tions have been cry­ing hoarse re­gard­ing vi­o­la­tion of the model code of con­duct, but Sirsa has so far con­tin­ued his po­lit­i­cally mo­ti­vated spree, un­mind­ful of the con­cerns of the Sikh San­gat and in his burn­ing de­sire to seek pub­lic­ity. 

It is a norm of well-ac­cepted elec­toral be­hav­iour that all open­ing cer­e­monies be not car­ried out while the elec­tion process is un­der­way. Sig­nif­i­cantly the court too ob­served that “we have to bal­ance spir­i­tual feel­ings and free and fair elec­tions.” 

The next few days will un­fold yet an­other chap­ter in the on­go­ing DS­GMC elec­tions drama.