Chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday launched the Jaagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar (Modification) Invoice, 2026, within the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, proposing lifestyles imprisonment and a excellent of as a lot as ₹25 lakh for the sacrilege (beadbi) of the Guru Granth Sahib. The switch objectives to compose a stringent merely deterrent against attempts to disturb communal concord thru organised acts of desecration.
The Invoice defines sacrilege as “any wilful and deliberate act, dedicated with the intent of desecration by bodily damaging, defacing, burning, tearing or theft of the Saroop(s) of Jaagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib or phase thereof, or by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or thru digital manner or otherwise, which is of this kind of nature as to harm the non secular emotions of persons professing the Sikh faith.”
Stricter penalties, conspiracy clauses
The Invoice mandates that any particular particular person chanced on guilty of sacrilege of the saroop of the Guru Granth Sahib as phase of a legal conspiracy will face as a minimal 10 years in detention heart, extendable to lifestyles.
In a serious escalation of industrial penalties, the legislation also proposes fines ranging from ₹5 lakh to ₹25 lakh. Crucially, the Invoice treats abettors—of us who incite or facilitate the crime—on par with the first offenders, making them liable for the same maximum punishment.
The legislation used to be necessitated by most modern attempts to disrupt peace within the relate. “The authorities is distinct no longer to permit such incidents and be definite that that deterrent action against all of us who commit such sacrilege,” the Invoice says, emphasising that the lifestyles term is supposed as a definitive deterrent.
Longstanding predict for justice
The introduction of this Invoice follows a decade of political and social unrest in Punjab precipitated by the 2015 Bargari sacrilege and subsequent police firing incidents at Behbal Kalan.
Hindustan Times has beforehand reported on the recurring criticism confronted by successive governments for their failure to steady convictions of the “masterminds” within the attend of these conspiracies.
Whereas the previous Congress-led authorities tried a same amendment in 2018, that model incorporated other non secular texts and confronted delays in receiving Presidential assent. The 2026 Invoice namely makes a speciality of the Guru Granth Sahib, reflecting one of the up-to-date administration’s effort to tackle a vital predict of Panthic organisations and fulfil a key electoral promise of ensuring justice in sacrilege conditions.
Oppn questions delay in 2015 sacrilege conditions
Chief of Opposition and Congress MLA Partap Singh Bajwa began by expressing his celebration’s strengthen for the Invoice, but asked the AAP authorities in regards to the action taken against the guilty within the Behbal Kalan and Bargari conditions of 2015. “More than forty eight months accept as true with passed but nothing has been accomplished,” he said. The Congress leader said that the AAP authorities did not object when all 5 conditions had been transferred outdoor Punjab.
He also asked the Bhagwant Mann authorities in regards to the action taken against police officials desirous in regards to the police firing. “Did you seek the suggestion of with constitutional experts so as that this Invoice would not meet the same destiny because the previous attempts to compose for stricter punishments? What did they are saying?” he asked, highlighting concerns over the Invoice’s eventual merely sustainability.
A lot of members from the Sant Samaj and leaders of a spread of sects (deras) are reveal within the governor’s box correct thru the assembly lawsuits.
