Justice HS Bhalla (retd) was on Tuesday appointed commissioner, gurdwara elections, under the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Act.
Also read: Haryana sets up 38-member ad hoc committee to manage its gurdwaras
The development comes a week after Karamjit Singh, chief of the Yamunanagar-based Sewapanthi sect, was elected president of the ad-hoc panel of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (HSGMC) till the committee elections are held in 18 months.
On December 2, the Haryana government had constituted the 38-member ad hoc committee to manage, supervise and take over all assets of gurdwaras in the state, including moveable and immoveable properties.
In September, the Supreme Court had upheld the validity of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Act, paving the way for the HSGMC to control all gurdwaras in the state.
Since former president Jagdish Singh Jhinda had already resigned as member of the committee, alleging intervention of the government in the religious matters of the Sikh community, now the HSGMC has 37 members. According to the HSGMC Act, there should be 41 members in the committee.
Ad-hoc panel constituted
{{/usCountry}}Ad-hoc panel constituted
{{/usCountry}}Last week, outgoing president Baljit Singh Daduwal opposed Karamjit’s election alleging that proper procedure was not followed.
However, Kurukshetra deputy commissioner Shantanu Sharma, who was the returning officer for the election, said Karamjit Singh had been elected president unanimously, while Gurwinder Singh Dhamija, deputy chairman of Haryana Punjabi Sahitya Akademi, had been appointed general secretary, Bhupinder Singh senior vice-president, Baba Gurmit Singh junior vice-president and Mohanjit Singh joint secretary.
Bibi Ravinder Kaur Ajrana, Jaswant Singh, Gurbaksh Singh, Ramneek Singh, Jagsir Singh and Viner Singh- were elected as the working committee members of the 37-member committee.
Daduwal, Nalvi dissatisfied
Daduwal was elected as the president of the HSGMC (ad-hoc) on August 13, 2020, defeating Jagbir Singh Khalsa by a narrow margin of two votes. Daduwal said the meeting was called under the monitoring of the deputy commissioner and soon after the proceedings of the election began after filing of the nomination papers, Gurwinder Singh Dhamija, who is also considered as a close associate of chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar proposed the name of Karamjit for the president, saying that these are the directions of the chief minister.
“I opposed this proposal as I don’t find Karamjit suitable for this position. They wanted to appoint me as Sarprast (Chief Patron) of this committee but I refused as the Guru Granth Sahib is the supreme patron of this committee and nobody can take this place,” he said
He said that Karamjit did not have any role in the formation of the separate Sikh body for gurdwaras in Haryana.
Daduwal said that he will continue as a member of this committee and seek legal and sangat’s (community’s) opinion on this development.
Former senior vice-president Didar Singh Nalvi, another member of the committee, also expressed his dissatisfaction over the election of Bhupinder Singh as senior vice-president, claiming that proper procedure was not followed as some members had proposed his name for this position.