New Delhi, October 4
The Supreme Court today said the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee’s (SGPC) 15-member executive committee headed by Avtar Singh Makkar would continue until further orders.

A Bench of Justices RM Lodha and Shiva Kirti Singh passed the order while admitting for detailed hearing the SGPC’s petition challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s December 2011 judgment restoring Sehajdhari Sikhs’ right to vote in the committee poll held every five years.

Acknowledging the importance of the issue, the Bench said it would take up the detailed hearing within a year, instead of putting it in the queue, which would result in longer time for getting listed again.

When the case came up for hearing today, counsel for the SGPC, the Sehajdhari Sikh Federation (SSF) and the Centre told the Bench that they had exchanged their pleadings in writing and the matter was ready for detailed hearing by the court. Upon this, the Bench passed the order on the interim committee and the next hearing.

On March 30, the SC had asked the November 2010 executive committee headed by Makkar to manage gurdwaras and other institutions of the SGPC as the Sehajdharis had not been allowed to participate in the election of the new board in September 2011.

All parties to the case had given their consent to the interim solution offered by the Bench as no other alternative was in sight.

The SC had then remarked that the “very legality of the new board has become suspect and the election has been rendered bad in law” in the light of the HC verdict and the September 2011 SC order, allowing the holding of the SGPC election on the condition that the poll results would be subject to the HC verdict on Sehajdharis’ voting rights.

In its December 20, 2011 judgment, the HC quashed the October 8, 2003, notification of the Central Government that had disenfranchised the Sehajdharis. The HC, however, did not clarify the status of the newly-elected SGPC board in the September 2011 poll.

In view of the HC verdict and the SC’s September 2011 order, the Centre was reluctant to convene the first meeting of the 170-member SGPC board and came to the SC seeking its clarification despite notifying the new Board on December 17, 2011.

The SGPC also approached the apex court, seeking a direction to the Centre to convene the first meeting of the new Board and thereby facilitate election of its office-bearers - president, senior vice-president, junior vice-president, general secretary and 11 executive committee members.