DS­GMC mem­bers and the po­lit­i­cal pow­ers that man­age these, are play­ing games with Sikh sen­ti­ments. In the pe­ti­tion filed by DS­GMC mem­ber Gurmeet Singh Shunty, the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions ex­poses the be­hind-the-scene ma­noeu­vres of the Akali lead­er­ship of the body that man­ages Gur­d­waras and Sikh in­sti­tu­tions in Delhi.  Sadly, the Sikh San­gat gives a damn. WSN warns that we get what we de­serve!

On a pe­ti­tion filed by DS­GMC mem­ber Gurmeet Singh Shunty against the Di­rec­tor, Gur­d­wara Elec­tions and the DS­GMC, San­jeev Ku­mar, Ad­di­tional Dis­trict Judge at Tees Haz­ari Courts, Delhi stayed the con­ven­ing of the Ex­ec­u­tive body meet­ing of the DS­GMC sched­uled for 19 Jan­u­ary on the grounds that as per the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Act, 1971, the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers should have sub­mit­ted their res­ig­na­tions to the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions, Gov­ern­ment of Delhi.

It is in­ter­est­ing to note that on the one hand Gurmeet Singh Shunty has pur­sued the mat­ter of cor­rup­tion in the DS­GMC upto the Delhi High Court and ob­tained an or­der to file an FIR against Man­jit Singh GK and oth­ers lead­ing to the fil­ing of the same; now he has rushed to the Ses­sions court seek­ing a re­strain­ing or­der for the DS­GMC gen­eral house meet and ob­tained that or­der too as a re­sult of which there will be no meet­ing on 19 Jan­u­ary 2019.

“WSN warns that you get what you de­serve. It is time to cry “Enough!” and catch the bull by its horns!”

On the one hand there are sub­stan­tive charges of cor­rup­tion against the in­cum­bent Pres­i­dent Man­jit Singh GK  and an FIR too has been reg­is­tered against him, they have con­founded the is­sue so much that it is still un­clear whether the full ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee of the DS­GMC has re­signed or not, whether they in­tend to re­sign or not and what level of pol­i­tick­ing is go­ing on in the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal vis-a-vis run­ning the af­fairs of the DS­GMC, with in­ter­fer­ence and med­dling by the Bharatiya Janta Party.

“Why is he do­ing so?” When WSN con­fronted an ac­tivist who keeps a tab on the de­vel­op­ments in the DS­GMC, he said, ‘Wheels within wheels. Some deal­ing-wheel­ing be­tween some pow­ers and some pow­ers to be seems to have gone awry.’

“The al­leged plea of res­ig­na­tion of the mem­bers and of­fice bear­ers is an af­ter­thought as by the said let­ter dated 9.1.2019, they have made aware that till the board mem­bers’ term is not ex­pired, no early elec­tion can be held. There­fore, the story of res­ig­na­tion of all Ex­ec­u­tive Board mem­bers was con­cocted.”

Di­rec­torate, Gur­d­wara Elec­tions, New Delhi

Shunty’s plea was that the pre­sent Pres­i­dent has called for a meet­ing of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board sched­uled to be held on 19.1.2019 though the turn of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board is two years which is to be ex­pired on 29.3.2019 as last elec­tions of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board was held on 30.3.2017.  He pleaded that, as such, ‘The pre­pone­ment of elec­tions is il­le­gal.’

He fur­ther sub­mit­ted that, “the meet­ing of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board was held on 6.12.9018 and in the said meet­ing, it is recorded that the elec­tions of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board is to be con­ducted on 29.12.2018, sub­ject to the ap­proval of the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions but no ap­proval has been granted by the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions.”

As re­ferred to in the or­der, the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions sought clar­i­fi­ca­tions from the Pres­i­dent and the Sec­re­tary vide let­ter dated 26.12.2018 seek­ing rea­son be­hind pre­pone­ment of elec­tions, as a re­sult of which no elec­tion was held on 29.12.2018 and then the Ex­ec­u­tive Board meet­ing was sched­uled for 19.1.2019.

“Wheels within wheels. Some deal­ing-wheel­ing be­tween some pow­ers and some pow­ers to be seems to have gone awry.”

The Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions in­formed the Ses­sions court that the Of­fi­ci­at­ing Pres­i­dent and Gen­eral Sec­re­tary have sub­mit­ted that “the rea­son for pre­pone­ment of elec­tion is that all the of­fice bear­ers and mem­bers of DS­GMC have re­signed.”

Sig­nif­i­cantly, the Di­rec­torate made a se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tion against the Ex­ec­u­tive Board in its sub­mis­sion that, ‘the al­leged plea of res­ig­na­tion of the mem­bers and of­fice bear­ers is an af­ter­thought as by the said let­ter dated 9.1.2019, they have made aware that till the board mem­bers’ term is not ex­pired, no early elec­tion can be held. There­fore, the story of res­ig­na­tion of all Ex­ec­u­tive Board mem­bers was con­cocted.”

Lam­bast­ing the sin­is­ter game plan of Man­jit Singh GK and Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa, elec­tion of­fi­cer Jogin­der Singh and sec­tion of­fi­cer Binod Ku­mar of the di­rec­torate, who ap­peared in per­son, stated that, “even if the Ex­ec­u­tive Board mem­bers have pre­sumed to be re­signed, their res­ig­na­tions could not be­come fi­nal un­til and un­less the same are ac­cepted by the Ex­ec­u­tive Board or com­mit­tee, as the case may be, as per Sec­tion 4 (a), Sec­tion 17 (2) (b) and Sec­tion 17 (3) of the Delhi Sikh Gu­rud­wara Act, 1971.

Ex­pos­ing their de­sign, the di­rec­torate’s sub­mis­sion adds that, “since in this case, en­tire Ex­ec­u­tive Board has re­signed there­fore, this is the com­mit­tee who can ac­cept the res­ig­na­tion but no com­mit­tee meet­ing has been called there­fore, the res­ig­na­tion has not been ac­cepted. Hence, the Ex­ec­u­tive Board of­fice bear­ers are still hold­ing their posts there­fore, no early elec­tions can be held as there is no va­cancy which can be filled.”

“Each of these lead­ers of the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment com­mit­tee –from top to bot­tom, the lead­ers of the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions are play­ing games with Sikh sen­ti­ments.”

Ap­pear­ing on be­half of the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions, its coun­sel fur­ther ar­gued that “Even a let­ter dated 6.12.2018 writ­ten by the Gen­eral Sec­re­tary and Pres­i­dent to the Di­rec­toro­rate of Gu­rud­wara Elec­tions and in the let­ter/​cir­cu­lar dated 29.12.2018 of the Gu­rud­wara Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee, there is no men­tion of the res­ig­na­tion of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board mem­bers which clearly proves that the al­leged res­ig­na­tion let­ters of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board are forged and fab­ri­cated and ma­nip­u­lated later on to cre­ate false grounds and in these cir­cum­stances, he sub­mits that hold­ing of elec­tions of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board mem­bers on 19.1.2019 is il­le­gal hence, same is re­quired to be stayed.”

All of these were con­tested by the DS­GMC un­der Sec­tions 31 and 33 of the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Act, 1971 stat­ing that there was no need for in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing res­ig­na­tion to be con­veyed to the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara elec­tions and fur­ther­more that res­ig­na­tions of all 47 mem­bers had been taken by way of a cir­cu­lar with sig­na­ture from all mem­bers.

The Ad­di­tional Dis­trict Judge Shri San­jeev Kar in his or­der has stated that, “from the afore­said com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­tween the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions and of­fice bear­ers, it is ev­i­dent that till date no per­mis­sion has been granted by the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions to con­duct elec­tions of the com­mit­tee. Fur­ther, I also find force in the con­tention of the coun­sel for the plain­tiff that res­ig­na­tion, if at all, given by the Pres­i­dent and other mem­bers of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board is re­quired to be ac­cepted be­fore the com­mit­tee as per Sec­tion 17 (3) of the Act.”

The judge dis­missed out­right “The con­tention of the coun­sel for the de­fen­dant that ac­cep­tance of the res­ig­na­tion has been taken from the mem­bers of com­mit­tee by the cir­cu­lar can­not be ac­cepted as ac­cep­tance has to be by way of ma­jor­ity but from the cir­cu­la­tion of let­ter of 6.121.2018 sent by Sh. Man­jeet Singh, I found that against few of the com­mit­tee mem­bers’ res­ig­na­tion, ac­cepted has been writ­ten. Fur­ther, it can­not be said from this that the same has been writ­ten by them or they have just signed as re­ceiv­ing of cir­cu­lar.”

Tak­ing all ar­gu­ments and in­for­ma­tion placed be­fore him, the judged granted in­terim stay against hold­ing elec­tions of the Ex­ec­u­tive Board of DS­GMC on 19.1.2019 and posted the mat­ter for 21 Feb­ru­ary 2019.

“By re­main­ing mute spec­ta­tors to the de­signs of such lead­ers on all sides of the spec­trum, the Sikh San­gat is al­low­ing them to go scot-free of their ma­li­cious in­ten­tions and power games.”

On the one hand, Gurmeet Singh Shunty wants to dis­lodge Man­jit Singh GK and com­pany and on the other he has sought a stay on the 19 Jan­u­ary meet, which has been granted. What is his mo­tive?

What game is he play­ing and what games are all play­ing? Each of these lead­ers of the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment com­mit­tee –from top to bot­tom, the lead­ers of the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions are play­ing games with Sikh sen­ti­ments.

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The sec­ond largest pop­u­la­tion of Sikhs out­side of Pun­jab in Delhi is watch­ing the pro­ceed­ings only from the side­lines. By re­main­ing mute spec­ta­tors to the de­signs of such lead­ers on all sides of the spec­trum, the Sikh San­gat is al­low­ing them to go scot-free of their ma­li­cious in­ten­tions and power games.

WSN warns that you get what you de­serve. It is time to cry “Enough!” and catch the bull by its horns!