Shock. Shock. Shock.  44 kilo­grams of gold is miss­ing from the Takht Hazur Sa­heb Toshakhana. Gold or­na­ments, arte­facts and an­tique pieces of do­na­tions from the Sikh San­gat weigh­ing 48 kilo­grams  melted, with­out due process and au­tho­ri­sa­tion. This re­ported em­bez­zle­ment run­ning into mil­lions of ru­pees thor­oughly ex­poses the Hazur Sa­heb Takht Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee. The mat­ter reaches Bom­bay High Court. Sikh re­li­gious lead­er­ship in Nanded and Pun­jab main­tain stoic si­lence. Gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra fully com­plicit through acts of omis­sion and com­mis­sion. Sikh San­gat’s faith shat­tered. Rec­og­niz­ing that it is time that an era of ac­count­abil­ity, trans­parency, and im­me­di­ate re­forms be­gins at statu­tory con­trolled Sikh Gur­d­waras and in­sti­tu­tions, WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh delves deep into the malaise that af­flicts Takht Hazur Sa­heb af­fairs and seeks more in­volve­ment of the Sikh San­gat world­wide to stop the mod­ern day Ma­hants who are cheat­ing the Sikh com­mu­nity with­out fear of God and Guru.

Shat­ter­ing the faith of the Sikh San­gat, a scan­dal of enor­mous pro­por­tions has come to light about how an un­scrupu­lous Sec­re­tary Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai of the Takht Hazur Sa­heb Board melted gold do­na­tions.  This alarm­ing scan­dal lays bare the mis­man­age­ment, neg­li­gence, and out­right be­trayal by its gov­ern­ing board mem­bers and state au­thor­i­ties. Alarmed by these egre­gious acts, two con­sci­en­tious pe­ti­tion­ers, Ran­jeet Singh Gill and Ra­jen­dra Singh Pu­jari, rat­tled by the dis­as­trous hap­pen­ings at this holy shrine, have taken the mat­ter to the Bom­bay High Court (Au­rangabad Bench). Their writ pe­ti­tion seeks jus­tice for the Sikh San­gat and ac­count­abil­ity for those who dared to de­file their sa­cred do­na­tions.

The pe­ti­tion in the Mum­bai High Court high­lights how a vast quan­tity of gold and sil­ver or­na­ments do­nated by devo­tees over decades was melted into gold bis­cuits with­out proper per­mis­sions or over­sight. This was al­legedly or­ches­trated by Gu­rud­wara Board mem­ber Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai, with the du­bi­ous as­sis­tance of jew­eller San­tosh Ramk­is­han Verma of Sarang Jew­ellers. Ad­vo­cate Wasif Shaikh, while speak­ing to WSN said, “The mat­ter is now listed for 18 De­cem­ber af­ter the court ad­mon­ished the State for not fil­ing the in­quiry re­port in time. The court or­der says that this is the last op­por­tu­nity pro­vided to the state oth­er­wise the Sec­re­tary will have to ap­pear in per­son.”

The mat­ter is now listed for 18 De­cem­ber af­ter the court ad­mon­ished the State for not fil­ing the in­quiry re­port in time.

Ad­vo­cate Wasif Shaikh, lawyer for the pe­ti­tion­ers

Cit­ing ex­haus­tive doc­u­men­ta­tion over the years, the pe­ti­tion has de­manded that the in­quiry re­port be made avail­able to the court and that the ac­cused Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai be re­strained from con­test­ing any elec­tion to the Gur­d­wara Board till the in­quiry is com­pleted.

Pe­ti­tion­ers Ra­jin­der Singh Pu­jari and Ran­jit Singh Gill told the WSN, “We will take this case to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion. Our Gu­ru’s house has been looted and we will not stay silent.  We will fight tooth and nail. The per­pe­tra­tors are roam­ing free and they should be hauled up be­fore the court of law, Takht Hazur Sahib and Akal Takht Sa­heb. No­body should go scot free.”

We will take this case to its log­i­cal con­clu­sion. Our Gu­ru’s house has been looted and we will not stay silent.  We will fight tooth and nail.

Ra­jin­der Singh Pu­jari, Ran­jit Singh Gill, Pe­ti­tion­ers who have taken the gold melt­ing mat­ter to court

Gold jew­ellery do­nated by the Sikh San­gat at Takht Hazur Sa­heb -one of the five seats of au­thor­ity of the Sikh faith, was melted by the Sec­re­tary of the Gur­d­wara Board Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai dur­ing his term. Form­ing a bo­gus com­mit­tee, then ob­tain­ing per­mis­sion post-facto, he formed a com­mit­tee to melt the gold in the Toshakhana -Gold Vault at the Takht, took on the man­tle him­self to do so and en­trusted the task to an un­ver­i­fied jew­eller. Gold or­na­ments and other items from 1970 to 2020 were melted into bricks. These were dis­played at Takht Hazur Sa­heb in the pres­ence of Jathedar Takht Hazur Sa­heb Gi­ani Kul­want Singh.

San­gat’s Wealth Mis­man­aged, Per­pe­tra­tors Walk Free

For decades, the San­gat has en­trusted the Gu­rud­wara with heart­felt of­fer­ings of gold, sil­ver, and pre­cious stones, hop­ing to see their do­na­tions pre­served as a tes­ta­ment to faith and ser­vice. There are his­tor­i­cal arte­facts from the times of Ma­ha­rani Jin­dan and di­a­mond-stud­ded Chaur Sa­heb too. How­ever, be­tween Oc­to­ber 2020 and May 2022, Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai, an elected mem­ber of the Gur­d­wara Board,  who of­fi­ci­ated as sec­re­tary, with bla­tant dis­re­gard for the sen­ti­ments and rights of the Sikh com­mu­nity, took it upon him­self to melt price­less or­na­ments into gold bis­cuits. This uni­lat­eral de­ci­sion, cloaked in claims of re­mov­ing im­pu­ri­ties, de­fies the very ethos of Sikh gov­er­nance, which pri­or­i­tizes col­lec­tive de­ci­sion-mak­ing through the in­volve­ment of the San­gat.

Aided by San­tosh Ramk­is­han Verma, the pro­pri­etor of Sarang Jew­el­ers, this du­bi­ous op­er­a­tion re­sulted in 31 gold bis­cuits weigh­ing over 49 kilo­grams. Shock­ingly, sub­se­quent in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that even these bis­cuits were not of pure gold, rais­ing sus­pi­cions of mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion and fraud.

The au­dit re­ports of the year 2020 men­tion that the to­tal gold at the time that Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai il­le­gally in­ter­vened was to the tune of 94 kg and not 50 kg as be­ing claimed by him and the jew­eller.

The Sikh Col­lec­tive de­mands a White Pa­per on the gold melt­ing case. The Sikh Col­lec­tive is closely mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion.  This is no triv­ial mat­ter. Each and every one re­spon­si­ble will be held ac­count­able be­fore the Sikh San­gat, sooner than later.”

Harmeet Singh, Co­or­di­na­tor, The Sikh Col­lec­tive

Why is the gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra al­ways keen to dis­miss the elected bod­ies at Takht Hazur Sa­heb and re­place it with ad­min­is­tra­tors and then do noth­ing about the ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties which are cited as cause for dis­missal?  It in­volves mil­lions of ru­pees. It is be­yond imag­i­na­tion that just one cor­rupt sec­re­tary can bla­tantly open the Toshakhana and melt every­thing? Over the last seven decades, large chunks of land be­long­ing to Takht Hazur Sahib has been usurped by un­scrupu­lous Sikh lead­ers and ap­pro­pri­ated by the gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra un­der one pre­text or the other. Now it is gold? What next? Speak­ing to WSN, Harmeet Singh of The Sikh Col­lec­tive has de­manded a White Pa­per on the the gold melt­ing is­sue from the gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra. He said, “The Sikh Col­lec­tive is closely mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion.  This is no triv­ial mat­ter. Each and every one re­spon­si­ble will be held ac­count­able be­fore the Sikh San­gat, sooner than later.”

Takht Hazur Sa­heb Ad­min­is­tra­tion and the Role of Gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra: Legacy of Pass­ing the Buck

How bla­tantly the en­tire scam was un­scrupu­lously car­ried out and how the Takht Board au­thor­i­ties and the State con­spired through si­lence can be seen from the fol­low­ing time line:

5 Oc­to­ber 2020
Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai writes a let­ter to the Pres­i­dent of the Gur­d­wara Board sug­gest­ing melt­ing of Gold stored in the Toshakhana at Takht Hazur Sa­heb, as ac­cord­ing to him, “this has not been done since 1971.” He promises to have promi­nent mem­bers pre­sent while the task is done and also videog­ra­phy of the process.

7 Oc­to­ber 2020 -11 Oc­to­ber 2020
One elected mem­ber Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai, of­fi­ci­at­ing as Sec­re­tary of the Takht Board unau­tho­ris­edly con­sti­tutes a com­mit­tee to melt gold stored in the Toshakhana from 1970 to 2020 and car­ries out the task with sup­port from an un­ver­i­fied lo­cal jew­eller, con­vert­ing the or­na­ments into 31 gold bis­cuits, weight­ing 49.27 kg. Sig­nif­i­cantly, as known to WSN, there was no po­lice or state of­fi­cial pre­sent, when this was done. Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai claims that videog­ra­phy was done, but it is not in the pub­lic do­main.

13 June 2021
A meet­ing of the board was held un­der the di­rec­tions of the Board Pres­i­dent Bhupin­der Singh Man­has. Sig­nif­i­cantly, ex-post-facto, the meet­ing un­der the chair­man­ship of Bhupin­der Singh Man­has and his deputy Gurinder Singh Bawa, unashamedly en­dorsed the role and ac­tion of Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai in melt­ing the gold. The sec­re­tary Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai re­vealed that the gold was melted in the pres­ence of many se­nior lo­cal lead­ers and the mem­bers of the so-called com­mit­tee formed by him for the pur­pose. He fur­ther claimed that the pu­rity of gold was dis­cussed.  At the in­ter­ven­tion of Gurvin­der Singh Bawa Vice-Pres­i­dent it was de­cided not to de­posit the gold into RBI till its pu­rity is not ver­i­fied. The opin­ion of SGPC rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gob­ind Singh Lon­gowal was also sought but he did not give a firm re­ply.

15 Dec 2021
Mem­bers of the Sikh San­gat in­clud­ing Bhai Mahin­der Singh Lan­gri, Man­jeet Singh Lan­gri, Ran­jeet Singh Lan­gri, Gurmeet Singh Bedi, Gur­pal Singh Khalsa, Harpal Singh Sandhu, Vazir Singh Fauji, Sar­b­jeet Singh Hotel­wale, Sukh­pal Singh, Gur­deep Singh Sandhu and Trilok Singh, af­ter prima fa­cie check­ing of the au­dit re­port, wrote a let­ter to Rev­enue Min­is­ter, Gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra seek­ing the for­ma­tion of a high-level com­mit­tee and take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion re­gard­ing sig­nif­i­cant mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion ob­served in the au­dit re­port con­cern­ing valu­able items (gold, di­a­monds, and items made thereof) do­nated by devo­tees at Gu­rud­wara Sachk­hand Sri Hazur Sahib, Nanded.

3 May 2022
Min­utes of the meet­ing held of 3 May show that the per­mis­sion to con­sti­tute the com­mit­tee and melt the said gold was taken at this meet­ing, months af­ter the gold was melted.

This is only the tip of the ice­berg. The go­ings-on at Takht Hazur Sa­heb have put the Sikh com­mu­nity to shame. Ras­cals, char­la­tans and thugs are man­ag­ing Sikh af­fairs in com­plic­ity with the gov­ern­ment which is hell-bent on de­stroy­ing the in­de­pen­dent char­ac­ter of Sikh re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions.” 

Man­jit Singh Karim­na­gar, so­cial and re­li­gious ac­tivist

3 May 2022
Pe­ti­tion­ers learn of the mis­deed and file com­plaints with the Takht au­thor­i­ties and the gov­ern­ment.

20 May 2022
Board con­sti­tutes 3-mem­ber Com­mit­tee to look into the case. The said jew­eller con­tends that the 31 gold bis­cuits are also not in their purest form.

30 May 2022
Shri Ram Ya­dav Un­der Sec­re­tary, Rev­enue and For­est De­part­ment, Gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra is­sues show cause no­tice un­der Sec­tion 53(1) of the Gu­rud­wara Board Act, 1956 – Com­plaints re­ceived by the gov­ern­ment re­gard­ing var­i­ous ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties to the Pres­i­dent of the Gur­d­wara Board.

2 June 2022
Bhupin­der Singh Man­has, Pres­i­dent of the Gur­d­wara Board replies to the show cause no­tice cit­ing ill-health and ab­sence from Takht Hazur Sa­heb, thereby deny­ing knowl­edge of any wrong-do­ing.  In his let­ter he brags more about his hu­man­i­tar­ian work rather dur­ing Covid, ad­dress the is­sue in ques­tion, which he la­beled as mis­chief by mis­cre­ants. He sched­ules a meet­ing on 30 June in Mum­bai.

16 June 2022
Sec­tion Of­fi­cer Mansi Sathe, Gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra writes a let­ter to Dis­trict Col­lec­tor Nanded seek­ing full in­quiry into the al­leged fi­nan­cial bungling, ex­pen­di­ture with­out bud­get­ing, loss to the prop­er­ties of the Board, not hold­ing Board meet­ing in time, etc.

29 June 2022
Shri Ram Ya­dav, Un­der Sec­re­tary, Rev­enue and For­est De­part­ment, Gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra writes to Dis­trict Col­lec­tor, Nanded ac­cept­ing his re­port dated 24 June 2022, un­der the pro­vi­sions of Sec­tions 53(1) and 53(2)(b) of the Nanded Sikh Gu­rud­wara Sachk­hand Sri Hazur Abchal­na­gar Sahib Act, 1956, dis­solv­ing the Board and ap­point­ing Dr. P. S. Pas­richa as the ad­min­is­tra­tor.

25 Au­gust 2022
Dr P. S. Pas­richa files a for­mal con­fi­den­tial re­port with the Ad­di­tional Sec­re­tary Rev­enue against Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai re­gard­ing melt­ing of gold and other ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties of the Sec­re­tary. Dr Pas­richa men­tions that he had got the gold con­tent ex­am­ined and ver­i­fied by two As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dents, based on au­dit re­ports from 1971-2020. He clearly de­clares in the let­ter that the Com­mit­tee con­sti­tuted by Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai was ul­tra­vires the Act as no prior per­mis­sion was taken, the Dis­trict Col­lec­tor’s of­fice was not in­formed, none of the Panj Pyaras were pre­sent, an unau­tho­rised jew­eller was given the task and that only the chair­man of the Board had lo­cus standi in such a sen­si­tive mat­ter.  He had asked Shri Nitin Ka­reer Ad­di­tional Chief Sec­re­tary, Rev­enue and Forests, Gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra to con­duct an ex­haus­tive en­quiry.

8 Au­gust 2023
The gov­ern­ment of Ma­ha­rash­tra ac­knowl­edged that there has been no progress in the mat­ter.

18 Sep­tem­ber 2024
The pe­ti­tion­ers Ra­jin­der Singh Pu­jari, Ran­jit Singh Gill, Jas­pal Singh Nam­bar­dar and Gurmeet Singh Ma­ha­jan filed an ex­haus­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion be­fore the pre­sent Ad­min­is­tra­tor Vi­jay Sat­bir Singh re­gard­ing the time line of the melt­ing of gold and no steps be­ing taken to ad­dress the mat­ter. They had sought a CBI en­quiry into the mat­ter and the reg­is­tra­tion of an FIR against the ac­cused Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai and oth­ers in­volved in the mat­ter.

So­cial and re­li­gious ac­tivist Man­jit Singh Karim­na­gar, while speak­ing to WSN said, “This is only the tip of the ice­berg. The go­ings-on at Takht Hazur Sa­heb have put the Sikh com­mu­nity to shame. Ras­cals, char­la­tans and thugs are man­ag­ing Sikh af­fairs in com­plic­ity with the gov­ern­ment which is hell-bent on de­stroy­ing the in­de­pen­dent char­ac­ter of Sikh re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions.” When pressed fur­ther as to what would he de­mand, he said, “The Sikh San­gat de­mands that a high-level en­quiry by a sit­ting judge of the Supreme Court of In­dia, in­volv­ing the CBI and ED, who must carry out a full in­quiry into the gold do­na­tions since 1971 and es­pe­cially since the year 2000.”  A man known not to mince words, Man­jit Singh added, “The Sikh lead­er­ship of Pun­jab has grossly failed in all mat­ters re­lat­ing to Takht Hazur Sa­heb. Their con­nivance with the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship at all lev­els has proved to be detri­men­tal to the cause of re­li­gious free­dom of the Sikh peo­ple.”

Pre­cious Her­itage Re­duced to Ashes

The scan­dal high­lights a tragic irony. The melted or­na­ments, many of them an­tique and em­bed­ded with pre­cious stones, were far more valu­able as his­tor­i­cal and spir­i­tual ar­ti­facts. Their preser­va­tion would have al­lowed fu­ture gen­er­a­tions to wit­ness the legacy of Sikh de­vo­tion. In­stead, they were re­duced to im­pure gold bricks, their her­itage and value di­min­ished ir­repara­bly.

This act is not just a fi­nan­cial crime but a spir­i­tual be­trayal. Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai and San­tosh Ramk­is­han Verma stand ac­cused of des­e­crat­ing sa­cred of­fer­ings for per­sonal gain.

Nam­bar­dar Jagdeep Singh who has been the knock­ing the doors of the ju­di­ciary for elec­tions to the Takht Hazur Sa­heb Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee, while speak­ing to the WSN said, “All these prob­lems can be sorted out if elec­tions are held in time and the state gov­ern­ment stops in­ter­fer­ing the af­fairs of the Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee. It is time that Sikhs man­age their own af­fairs. Those who are guilty in the gold melt­ing case must be se­verely pun­ished as per Sikh tra­di­tions.”

A Call to Ac­tion: Pre­serve Sikh Her­itage, Pun­ish the Guilty

The Sikh com­mu­nity must not al­low this be­trayal to fade into bu­reau­cratic obliv­ion. It is im­per­a­tive that:

1. The Ma­ha­rash­tra gov­ern­ment con­cludes its in­quiry with­out fur­ther de­lay and holds Bun­gai and Verma ac­count­able for their ac­tions.
2. Sikh in­sti­tu­tions adopt trans­par­ent mech­a­nisms to man­age do­na­tions, with ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion from the San­gat to pre­vent uni­lat­eral de­ci­sions.
3. Sa­cred do­na­tions be pre­served in their orig­i­nal form, en­sur­ing their his­tor­i­cal, cul­tural, and spir­i­tual value re­mains in­tact.
4. A Board of Jathedars and ex­perts must be con­sti­tuted whose ex­clu­sive duty would be to doc­u­ment all his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments, tra­di­tional weaponry and arte­facts through pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy. They should be placed in the Toshakhana and from time to time, this Board should aware the Sikh San­gat about its safety and ex­is­tence.

The Takhat Sachk­hand Sri Hazur Abchal­na­gar Gu­rud­wara stands as a tes­ta­ment to Sikh de­vo­tion and sac­ri­fice. Its sanc­tity must not be tar­nished by cor­rupt in­di­vid­u­als and in­dif­fer­ent ad­min­is­tra­tions. The global Sikh San­gat has a duty to de­mand jus­tice and en­sure that such be­tray­als never hap­pen again.

This gross loot of the Sikh Trea­sure trove is em­blem­atic of a larger malaise where un­scru­plous Sikh lead­ers, state-ap­pointed ad­min­is­tra­tors treat Sikh in­sti­tu­tions as mere bu­reau­cratic re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, de­void of any un­der­stand­ing of their spir­i­tual and cul­tural sig­nif­i­cance. Rather than en­sur­ing jus­tice, they pass the buck, leav­ing the San­gat dis­il­lu­sioned and the Gu­rud­wara’s sanc­tity and prop­er­ties in jeop­ardy.

Ad­vo­cate Am­rit­pal Singh, who un­cov­ered the cor­rup­tion in the Ak­hand Paath case, when a clean chit was given to the cul­prits – case which he is still con­test­ing, speak­ing on the phone line to WSN said, “I am not sur­prised. A se­ri­ous malaise has de­vel­oped in our Takhts, in­clud­ing the Takht Hazur Sahib. A com­plete over­haul is the need of the hour. How and when will this hap­pen, de­pends upon how much vig­i­lance is main­tained by the Sikh San­gat.”

The Sikh com­mu­nity world­wide is ap­palled by the be­trayal of trust and the dis­re­gard for their con­tri­bu­tions to the Gu­rud­wara.

To wit, every­body is com­plicit, not just Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai. The then Gur­d­wara Board Pres­i­dent Bhupin­der Singh Man­has and Vice-Pres­i­dent Gurinder Singh Bawa who rat­i­fied the gold melt­ing ex-post-facto demon­strate clear com­plic­ity and con­nivance in the case. In fact, the buzz among the Sikh San­gat is that ear­lier oral or­ders were given and sub­se­quently this was rat­i­fied.  Af­ter tak­ing Ravin­der Singh to task, Dr Pas­richa did not prop­erly and ad­e­quately pur­sue the mat­ter and there­fore he is com­plicit through neg­li­gence. The State of Ma­ha­rash­tra con­tin­ues to dilly-dally with the in­quiry into the mat­ter, but was quick to dis­miss the Board and still in the name of en­act­ing a  new law, does not want to hold elec­tions to the Takht Hazur Sahib Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee. The State lead­er­ship ac­tively in­ter­ven­ing in Takht af­fairs is equally com­plicit. What were the au­di­tors do­ing all along? Are they also com­plicit?

In the court of the Sikh San­gat, all are guilty. Who will pun­ish them and when, time will tell.