PATIALA: Preparations for holding elections to the 160 member general house of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) are moving at a snail’s space despite the fact that the Punjab and Haryana High Court had ordered holding of these elections before December 1994.
The court had given the order in Response to a writ petition filed by Gurcharan Singh Tohra, president, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, seeking its direction to hold the SGPC elections.
The Union home ministry, which is responsible for conducting the elections, did not pay much heed to the court directions and, consequently, the Punjab and Haryana court issued a second order asking to fix responsibility for not holding the elections as directed.
The Punjab Government has conveyed this High Court direction to the Union home ministry but there has been no response to that either.
However, after the second order, the Union home ministry, in the month of February, appointed Justice Harbans singh (retd) chief commissioner, gurdwara elections. He will look after the arrangements for conducting elections to the SGPC general house. When contacted, Justice Harbans Singh said that he was in the process of establishing his office. He is likely to operate from his Sector 4 residence in Chandigarh.
Justice Harbans Singh said that his first job would be to update the electoral rolls, which would consume a Jot of time of the Punjab Election Department. Singh has issued orders for publication of 60 lakh forms for enrolling fresh voters for the SGPC elections. The number of enlisted voters, in 1979, was only over three lakh.
The electoral college of the SGPC is different from the Electoral College for assembly or parliament elections. In the case of SGPC, each voter has to fill form under Rule 3 (i) of the All India Gurdwara Act 1925, for eligibility, and given affidavit to confirm that (i) He is a sehajdhari Sikh and does not trim his hair, (ii) he does not smoke and (iii) he does not consume liquor oF the total 160members of the general house, 14 are elected, 15 coopted and five head ministers (jathedars of various takhts) are taken in the general house, being the exofficio members.
In reply to a question regarding the delimitation of constituencies, justice Harbans Singh said that it would be decided after the electoral rolls were updated. If there was enormous increase in the number of voters, the process of delimitation may also have to be exercised.
Justice Harbans Singh said that it was not possible even to give a tentative date for issuing the notification for starting the process of holding the elections, right now.
Beside Punjab, the states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and the Union Territory off Chandigarh will” be involved in these elections. A senior official of the Punjab Elections Department associated with the conducting of SGPC elections, on a condition of anonymity, said it would not be possible to hold elections to SGPC before April 1996.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 2, 1995
