SGPC pans Eknath Shinde govt bid to limit Sikh groups’ picks on Nanded gurdwara board

SGPC pans Eknath Shinde govt bid to limit Sikh groups’ picks on Nanded gurdwara board

Chandigarh: The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee has objected to the Maharashtra government’s proposed move to limit the number of members of Sikh organisations in the Takht Sri Hazur Sahib Nanded Gurdwara Board.

In a statement Wednesday, SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami said the move is both “sad and condemnable”.

The Maharashtra cabinet had Monday decided that the government would nominate 12 members to the 17-member board, while cutting the number of members to be nominated by the SGPC to two from four.

Appointment of the board members is overseen by the state’s Nanded Sikh Gurdwara Sachkhand Sri Hazur Abchalnagar Sahib Board Act, 1956, and this proposal of the government has yet to pass the stages of legislative voting.

The Hazur Sahib Gurdwara on the banks of the Godavari river at Nanded is one of the five Takths or high seats of authority of the Sikh religion. It marks the site where the 10th and last Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh, breathed his last in 1708.

It has an estimated annual budget of Rs 100 crore, and also has associated properties worth crores. The board oversees the overall management of the gurdwara and associated assets.

In a post on X, Dhami said the Eknath Shinde government’s decision “is a direct interference in Sikh gurdwara affairs, which cannot be tolerated by Sikh community”.

“Maharashtra govt’s decision to increase the number of govt nominated members and reduce the members of Sikh organisations in gurdwara board is an act to take direct control of Sikh shrines,” he added. “No advance consultation has been done with Sikhs before proposing such an amendment in the ‘The Nanded Sikh Gurdwara Sachkhand Sri Hazur Abchalnagar Sahib Board Act, 1956’.”

He then “appealed” to the CM to “immediately stop conspiracies to increase govt influence in management and concerns of Sikh shrines”.

“Distortion of the Nanded Sikh Gurdwara Sachkhand Sri Hazur Abchalnagar Sahib Board Act, 1956, should be stopped,” he added.

Under the Nanded Sikh Gurdwara Sachkhand Sri Hazur Abchalnagar Sahib Board Act, 1956, the board members are either elected or nominated.

Of the 17 members, four are nominated by the SGPC Amritsar, the organisation responsible for the maintenance of historic Sikh places of worship in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, and three are elected from the seven districts of Marathwada — the election held every three years.

Two members are Sikh MPs nominated by the Government of India, while one member each is nominated by the state governments of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The Nanded collector is also a part of the board, which means there are currently five government nominees.

Of the remaining five members, four are nominated by the Sachkhand Hazuri Khalsa Diwan Nanded, a religious body registered in Hyderabad, and one by the the Chief Khalsa Diwan.

Several controversies

Over the years, multiple controversies have surrounded the election and selection of members to the board.

“Several attempts have been made by the Maharashtra government to increase its control over the working of the gurdwara, which is a direct interference in the religious affairs of the Sikhs,” Jaskaran Singh, who heads the public relations team of the SGPC, told ThePrint.

In 2014, a committee headed by a retired judge of the Bombay High Court, Justice J.S. Bhatia, was constituted to suggest amendments to the Act following demands that the representation of local Sikhs be increased in the board.

In August 2014, the cabinet approved the recommendations of the Justice Bhatia committee, and decided to increase the membership of the board from 17 to 21, while reducing the number of SGPC nominees from four to one.

Apart from the SGPC-nominated member, 18 were to be elected and two were to be nominated by the Maharashtra government, including the Nanded collector.

While the changes to the membership of the board were not implemented, in 2015, the Maharashtra government introduced an amendment to the 1956 Act — which was passed by the assembly — and took upon itself the powers to appoint the president of the board. The president was earlier elected by the board.

BJP MLA Tara Singh was the first government-appointed president of the board, and completed his term in 2018. However, he continued until a new president was appointed in March 2019, when fresh elections to the board were held.

The Maharashtra government then appointed industrialist Bhupinder Singh Manhas as the president amid vociferous opposition from the SGPC and the Shiromani Akali Dal and some board members, who wanted the old system of members appointing the president to be revived.

In 2018, the Maharashtra cabinet again approved a change in the membership of the board to include six more members. However, the move was objected to by the SGPC and several board members, including Manhas, who was then the vice-president of the board under Tara Singh.

In March 2022, the Maharashtra government also got a rap from the Bombay High Court for usurping the powers of the Sachkhand Hazuri Khalsa Diwan Nanded.

The government had in October 2020 appointed four members to the board against the seats reserved to be appointed by the Nanded Diwan. The matter went through protracted litigation in the Bombay High Court, the Supreme Court, and again the high court, leading to the court rap.

The last elections to the board were held in 2019 and its tenure ended in March 2022. In the absence of an elected board, the Maharashtra government appointed former Maharashtra Director General of Police (DGP) Parvinder Singh Pasricha as the administrator of the board in July 2022.

In August last year, the Maharashtra government replaced him with a non-Sikh officer. After the SGPC and BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa objected, the Maharashtra government appointed retired IAS officer Vijay Satbir Singh as the administrator.

The SGPC had also pressed for elections to the board. Elections to the board are now due for almost two years.

(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)