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SC declines to stay High Court order on gurdwara panel
S.S. Negi
Our Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, August 22
The Supreme Court today declined to stay the Punjab and Haryana High Court order quashing a Punjab Government notification restoring the Sikh Gurdwara Judicial Commission (SGJC) with its three members who were holding their posts prior to its reconstitution in 1999.

A Bench comprising Mr Justice S. Rajendra Babu and Mr Justice G.P. Mathur declined to grant the interim stay on the August 14 order of the High Court, when a special mention about the filing of the petition against it by the three affected members of the SGJC was made before it.

Since the matter was not listed for hearing today, advocate C.A. Sundaram, appearing for the three affected members, made a special mention of it before the Bench in the afternoon, pleading for an interim stay, contending that the matter was of utmost importance.

However, the court declined to grant the stay and ordered that the special leave petition, filed by the SGJC members — Mr Kashmir Singh, Mr Dara Singh and Mr Raghbir Singh — should be listed for hearing on September 9.

The Amarinder Singh government had issued a notification on July 5 last year rescinding an order of January 6, 1999, about the appointment of Mr Manmohan Singh Brar, Mr Ajwant Singh and Mr Amrik Singh to the commission after the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) elections in 1998, held during the tenure of former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.

The Congress government in its July 5, 2002, order had simultaneously restored the earlier panel comprising Mr Kashmir Singh, Mr Dara Singh and Mr Raghbir Singh, which was challenged in the High Court by the other three members appointed by the Badal government.