Hear­ing a bunch of pe­ti­tions chal­leng­ing the ef­forts be­ing made by a Bud­dhist sect to con­vert Gur­d­wara Gu­rudong­mar into a Bud­dhist monastery, the Sikkim High Court to­day or­dered sta­tus quo till 6 Oc­to­ber 2017. 

The Sikkim High Court hear­ing a bunch of pe­ti­tions by Sri Guru Singh Sabha Silig­uri, act­ing on be­half of the SGPC and Am­rit­pal Singh Khalsa Ad­vo­cate and so­cial ac­tivist Ajmer Singh Rand­hawa, in the case of at­tempted usurpa­tion of his­toric Gur­d­wara Sahib Gu­rudong­mar, Sikkim by a Bud­dhist sect, or­dered a sta­tus quo for two weeks re­strain­ing both the Sikhs and the Bud­dhists from wor­ship­ping at the place till 6 Oc­to­ber 2017, en­abling the two sides to take nec­es­sary steps in the mat­ter.

Ready to go into the mer­its of the case with full ev­i­dence, his­to­rian and au­thor­ity on Gur­d­wara Gu­rudong­mar -Col Dr. Dalvin­der Singh Gre­wal, pe­ti­tion­ers Am­rit­pal Singh Khalsa and Ajmer Singh Rand­hawa and oth­ers were pre­sent in court. Sub di­vi­sional mag­is­trate Sonam Tapgi Taahe was also pre­sent in the High Court.

Rupin­der Singh of Sri Guru Singh Sabha Silig­uri has been ex­tremely help­ful to all pe­ti­tion­ers and ably co­or­di­nated all ef­forts, whereas the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee also as­sisted the pe­ti­tion­ers.

Pe­ti­tioner Am­rit­pal Singh Khalsa from Mum­bai, who was given the right to be im­pleaded by the Supreme Court of In­dia, where he had pe­ti­tioned in the said case two weeks ago, also pleaded the Sikkim High Court to grant the right to visit the Gur­d­wara Sahib as the per­mis­sion to visit the his­toric site had been re­fused on two ear­lier oc­ca­sions to wor­ship­pers as well as mem­bers of the SGPC. Af­ter an un­der­tak­ing from the pe­ti­tioner that they will not make any changes at the site, Chief Jus­tice Satish Ag­ni­hotri of the Sikkim High Court granted per­mis­sion to visit the site and di­rected the State coun­sel to make arrange­ments to al­low the pe­ti­tioner and other mem­bers of the del­e­ga­tion who are in Sikkim.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sively to World Sikh News prior to the hear­ing, Col Gre­wal told us that, “we have enough his­toric ma­te­r­ial to prove our case.”

Sri Guru Singh Sabha was rep­re­sented by coun­sels Navin Barik, Sandip Ma­jum­dar and Deepu Prasad, while the State of Sikkim was rep­re­sented by Ad­di­tional Ad­vo­cate Gen­eral Mr. Karma Thin­lay with Mr. San­tosh Kr. Chet­tri, Ms. Pollin Rai and Ms. Sende­nia Bhutia. The Bud­dhist Dsumza were rep­re­sented by Ms. Panila Theengh and Ms. Tashi Doma Sherpa.

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Am­rit­pal Singh Khalsa said that he will let the Sikh com­mu­nity know the lat­est sit­u­a­tion in Gur­d­wara Gu­rudong­mar af­ter a visit there to­mor­row.

Al­though the Chief Jus­tice had given ver­bal or­ders per­mit­ting Am­rit­pal Singh Khalsa to go to Gur­d­wara Gu­rudong­mar, the deputy com­mis­sioner of North Sikkim Dis­trict, Dr. Karma Bonpo has sought 6 days, cit­ing se­cu­rity rea­sons, ef­fec­tively de­feat­ing the or­der of the Chief Jus­tice.⁠⁠⁠⁠