Akali Dal to organise Khalsa panth against Supreme Court vedict on Haryana gurdwara law

Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Wednesday said the Supreme Court verdict, recognising validity of a separate gurdwara management committee for Haryana, had alienated and discriminated against the Sikh community and said it would organise the entire Khalsa panth against this decision under the Akal Takht's leadership.

The SAD's senior leadership, while rejecting the apex court order recognising the validity of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara (Management) Act, 2014, asserted "we will fight for our rights and expose this 'panth virodhi' conspiracy as well as the 'masands' who have become willing partners to it".

Senior leaders Balwinder Singh Bhundur, Prem Singh Chandumajra, Maheshinder Singh Grewal, and Hira Singh Gabria said the Supreme Court verdict, "which had a communal tinge", had given an impression to the Sikh community that the law of the land was different for them and "that they were second-class citizens".

Taking on the apex court, the senior leaders said "the Supreme Court will have to tell who is running it".

They said this was important as relief was being granted in cases which were not in the jurisdiction of the apex court even as the Sikh community was disrespected in a case which pertained to a central Act.

Asserting that justice could not be denied to a community in a healthy democracy in which the judiciary should be independent, the leaders said attempts were being made to divide the Sikh community under a conspiracy.

"The sewa of our gurdwaras is being denied to us for the second time since the partition of the country in 1947 when a sizable number of gurdwaras were left behind in Pakistan."

They said the judgment had even discarded the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee's (SGPC) right to manage its gurdwaras.

"We will not allow this to happen and will fight tooth and nail by taking recourse to legal options as well as democratic struggle to secure our rights."

The senior SAD leadership also warned the Union government and other political parties which were conspiring against the Sikh community that this could have very dangerous repercussions for the country.

"We have a right to live with respect", the leaders asserted, adding the Sikh community had done the most, be it fighting for independence of the country to guarding its frontiers and contributing to the national food pool.

Meanwhile the leaders also claimed the apex court was following different parameters on similar issues.

They said in the SYL case, the Supreme Court had rejected the Acts passed by the Punjab government returning the land on which the canal was constructed back to farmers by stating that the state did not have any right to adjudicate on an inter-state issue.

They said, however, now in the case of the gurdwara management case, the apex court had assented to Haryana's right to make its own laws on an inter-state Act.