EX­CLU­SIVE: Af­ter be­ing the only toady of the Sikh com­mu­nity for de­fy­ing the col­lec­tive Sikh con­scious­ness and at­tend­ing the foun­da­tion-sta­tion lay­ing cer­e­mony of the Ram Tem­ple at Ay­o­d­haya and den­i­grat­ing the found­ing fa­thers of the Sikh faith, now the Head Granthi-turned-for­mer Jathedar, Gi­ani Iqbal Singh has sounded the bu­gle that he con­tin­ues to be the provost -Jathedar of the Takht Har­mandir Ji Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee in to­tal nega­tion of his own res­ig­na­tion, the res­o­lu­tions of the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee and the or­ders of Gi­ani Harpreet Singh -Jathedar of Akal Takht Sahib.

In a com­mu­ni­ca­tion on 4 Oc­to­ber 2020, a copy of which is with the WSN, ad­dressed to the five Singh Sahibans -High Priests of the Takht Har­mandir Ji Com­mit­tee, Gi­ani Iqbal Singh has claimed that he has not re­signed from his post as “Jathedar” and that his pur­ported res­ig­na­tion with the Takht Com­mit­tee has not been rat­i­fied by the Dis­trict Judge Patna, as per the by­laws of the Takht Har­mandir Ji Patna Sahib.

Gi­ani Iqbal Singh was asked on 4 Oc­to­ber 2020 by the Five Pyare Singh Sahibans -Head Granthis and Granthis of Takht Patna Sahib -Bhai Baldev Singh, Bhai Dalip Singh, Bhai Har­jit Singh, Bhai Ma­jin­der Singh,  and Bhai Gur­dayal Singh -to grace­fully ac­cept the de­ci­sion of the Akal Takht Sahib dated 5 March 2019, wherein the Takht Com­mit­tee was di­rected to ac­cept the res­ig­na­tion of Gi­ani Iqbal Singh, sub­mit­ted to the Com­mit­tee on 3 March 2019.

In­stead of ac­cept­ing his own res­ig­na­tion dated 3 March 2019, which was placed be­fore the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee on 5 March 2019 and ac­cepted by the Com­mit­tee un­der the di­rec­tion of Akal Takht Jathedar, Gi­ani Iqbal Singh, in his let­ter dated 4 Oc­to­ber 2020 is spread­ing ca­nards and lies.

In his let­ter, he says, “the al­leged res­ig­na­tion of mine has not been rat­i­fied by the Dis­trict Judge Patna and it is for the Dis­trict Judge Patna to ap­prove the de­ci­sion of the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee.”

This writer has also com­pre­hen­sively stud­ied the by­laws of the Takht Har­mandir Sahib Com­mit­tee and I can vouch that the for­mer Head Granthi Gi­ani Iqbal Singh is telling lies. There is no such pro­vi­sion in the rules and reg­u­la­tions.

As an ex­pert on the sub­ject -Chief Ad­vi­sor to Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee –Cha­ran­jit Singh Saluja, who is in the know of the things hap­pen­ing at Takht Patna Sahib told WSN, “There is a prac­tice since decades that all de­ci­sions of the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee are con­veyed to the Dis­trict Judge Shri S D Mishra. In this case, also it was so done. Sadly, Gi­ani Iqbal Singh is brin­ing shame to the com­mu­nity by his ac­tions prompted only by the fact that he wants to hang on to the premises at the Takht Sahib.”

De­spite di­rec­tions by the Takht Com­mit­tee and the re­quests of the Se­wadars of the Takht, Gi­ani Iqbal Singh con­tin­ues to il­le­gally oc­cupy the premises of the Takht since the last one and a half years. The Takht Com­mit­tee has also posted a no­tice on his door urg­ing him to va­cate the premises but to no avail.

In­dar­jit Singh Tatana­gar -the Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee, while speak­ing to World Sikh News said, “We have his res­ig­na­tion. His res­ig­na­tion was ac­cepted as per di­rec­tions of Jathedar Akal Takht. We have him on video say­ing that he has re­signed vol­un­tar­ily. He is un­nec­es­sar­ily rak­ing up these is­sues and dis­turb­ing the smooth func­tion­ing at Takht Sahib.”

“I have per­son­ally re­quested him to va­cate the premises but he just does not seem to budge,” he added.

The story of lies and sub­terfuge does not end here. Soon af­ter sub­mit­ting his res­ig­na­tion, prompted by the cir­cu­la­tion of the anti-Sikh be­hav­iour of his son -Gur­prasad Singh, a friend of his son -one Man­preet Singh filed a pe­ti­tion be­fore the Dis­trict Judge Patna seek­ing an­nul­ment of the ac­cep­tance of his res­ig­na­tion by the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee.

This pe­ti­tion has been pend­ing for the last many months. Af­ter ly­ing low for months, a few weeks back, Gi­ani Iqbal Singh ap­plied for be­ing an in­ter­venor in the pe­ti­tion, which has been chal­lenged by the Takht Com­mit­tee le­gal team.

Gi­ani Iqbal Singh con­tin­ues to oc­cupy the premises at Takht Sahib, de­spite his res­ig­na­tion hav­ing been ac­cepted. It is re­li­ably learnt that the Takht Com­mit­tee has writ­ten to the Chief Min­is­ter of Bi­har -Ni­tish Ku­mar, urg­ing him to use his good of­fices to get the premises to va­cate and to avoid un­nec­es­sary has­sles at the Takht premises. A copy of the no­tice posted on his door has been sent to the lo­cal po­lice sta­tion as well.

He con­tin­ues to oc­cupy the phys­i­cal premises of the Takht. He con­tin­ues to oc­cupy the Sikh land­scape in favour of the needs of the In­dian state. Whose game is he play­ing? It is not very dif­fi­cult to guess.