Chandigarh: After years of stalled attempts, the Punjab government finally succeeded in passing anti-sacrilege legislation that provides for strict punishments for the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib, considered a living guru by the Sikhs.
On Monday, the Punjab government notified the Jaagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar (Amendment) Act, 2026, following the Governor’s assent to the Bill against sacrilege, an issue that has dominated the state’s politics for over a decade, triggered public anger, and repeatedly tested the limits of both law and governance.
Punjab has attempted, at least three times in the past decade, to enact stricter anti-sacrilege provisions by amending central criminal law—but without any success.
This time, the government changed tack and used the state law route to sidestep earlier hurdles and push through the legislation. The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) hailed it as a “game changer” ahead of the Assembly elections expected early next year, saying it had finally succeeded after previous governments failed to make a breakthrough.
Last week, when the Punjab Assembly unanimously passed the Bill, the move reflected both political urgency and a legal strategy aimed at overcoming past legislative failures.
Speaking to ThePrint Monday, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann claimed credit for ensuring that the legislative move crossed the most critical procedural threshold that earlier anti-sacrilege laws in Punjab repeatedly failed to clear.
With the Governor granting assent and the state government issuing a formal notification, the legislation has come into force, making it, for now, the operative law governing cases of sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib in the state.
This marks a significant departure from the pattern of the past decade, when successive attempts by different governments to introduce stricter punishments for sacrilege were either returned, stalled, or left in limbo at the level of Presidential consideration.
By contrast, the present law has taken effect without being held up at that stage, at least for now, lending immediate legal teeth to what Mann has described as one of the toughest statutory frameworks in the country.
The current amendment appears to be a deliberate attempt to avoid that route.
“By modifying an existing state-specific statute instead of altering central criminal law, the government has sought to frame the legislation as a regulatory law concerning the handling and protection of the Guru Granth Sahib, rather than a direct conflict with provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023,” said a senior Punjab government official.
Adding, “The amendment represents not just another legislative attempt, but a calibrated intervention—one that combines stricter penalties, administrative restructuring and legal positioning, while navigating constitutional constraints that derailed similar efforts in the past.”
For Mann, the law is important because it shifts the focus from intent to enforcement.
“The shift is not merely procedural. The fact that the law is now notified changes the conversation from legislative intent to enforceability,” the chief minister said.
“For the first time since the sacrilege controversies that erupted in 2015, Punjab has a state-specific statute in force that prescribes stringent punishments—including life imprisonment—for desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib, along with a structured framework for investigation, custodial responsibility and prosecution,” he added.
At the same time, the development does not entirely settle the legal questions that have shadowed earlier attempts.
Given that criminal law remains on the Concurrent List, the possibility of future scrutiny—either through judicial challenge or questions over conflict with central law—remains open.
But, in immediate terms, the government has succeeded where previous administrations could not: translating a politically charged demand into a notified law.
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A graduated punishment regime
The original 2008 Act was largely regulatory in nature, aimed at controlling the printing and distribution of the Guru Granth Sahib by anyone other than the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the regulatory body of Sikh gurdwaras. The 2026 amendment transforms it into a penal statute to deter anyone from disrespecting it.
The original Act, notified in June 2008 when the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine was in power in the state, provided for the prevention of “printing, publication, storage, distribution of supply of the Guru Granth Sahib by any authority or body beyond the SGPC”.
The only penalty provided for in the Act was two years’ imprisonment and a fine for anyone who printed or distributed the Guru Granth Sahib. The amended law introduces the element of sacrilege in the Act, prescribing a graduated but severe punishment regime.
Any act of sacrilege—defined expansively to include physical damage, desecration, theft, defacement, or even offensive representation through electronic means—will attract a minimum of seven years’ imprisonment, extendable to 20 years, along with fines ranging from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
Where the offence is committed with the intent to disturb communal harmony or public peace, the punishment escalates to a minimum of 10 years, extendable to life imprisonment, and fines of between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 25 lakh.
The law goes further than previous formulations by treating abetment and conspiracy on par with the principal offence, and criminalising even attempts, with prison terms of three to five years.
All offences under the Act are to be cognisable, non-bailable and non-compoundable (cannot be avoided with the payment of a fine), and are triable by a sessions court.
Investigations must be carried out by a police officer not below the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police, signalling an intent to ensure seriousness and accountability in prosecution.
Custodial responsibility
The amendment also introduces a structural innovation that has not received as much public attention: a system of custodial responsibility.
The law defines a “custodian” as any individual or institution responsible for the care of a Saroop (authorised copy) of the Guru Granth Sahib, and imposes a legal duty to ensure its protection and report any incident of damage or suspected sacrilege.
A key argument advanced by Mann while piloting the Bill was that previous cases had often collapsed because accused persons claimed mental instability.
The amended law attempts to address this by expanding liability: even the guardians or custodians of a person accused of sacrilege can be held accountable, a provision meant to deter misuse of the insanity defence.
In addition, the SGPC is mandated to maintain a centralised digital and physical register of all Saroops, including details of printing, storage, distribution and custodianship.
The law also updates terminology, replacing “Bir” (or book) with “Saroop” (or form) throughout the statute—aligning legal language with religious usage.
Perhaps most significantly in the current context, the definition of sacrilege explicitly includes acts committed through electronic or digital means, bringing within its ambit social media content and AI-generated material—an area increasingly flagged by the SGPC.
The AAP government’s move comes within nine months of it having referred a similar legislation—the ‘Punjab Prevention of Offences against Holy Scriptures Bill, 2025’—to a Select Committee of MLAs to seek suggestions from all stakeholders, including the public, regarding the provisions of the Bill.
That Bill also proposes strict punishments for those involved in the sacrilege of holy scriptures, including the Guru Granth Sahib.
The timing of the amendment and the route chosen led the Opposition to question the government over why it was pushing changes to the 2008 Act while a broader law dealing with the sacrilege of all religious scriptures is already under consideration by a Select Committee. “Though we (Congress) are supporting the amendments, we want to know what is the status of the proceedings of the select committee that was also looking at a similar proposal. Has that move been shelved?” asked Partap Singh Bajwa, Leader of the Opposition, during the discussion on the Bill in the Assembly.
Political lives of sacrilege cases
The amended Act cannot be understood without recalling the events of 2015, when incidents of sacrilege in Faridkot district triggered widespread protests, followed by police firing at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura. Those events reshaped Punjab’s political landscape.
Since then, sacrilege has remained a central electoral issue. The Congress used it to dislodge the Akali-BJP government in 2017. The AAP invoked it again in 2022.
Despite multiple investigations, the issue has been kept alive politically.
Even during the discussion on the amendments during the special session of the Vidhan Sabha last week, bickering and blame games over the investigation of the 2015 cases dominated the proceedings.
Congress leaders said that the AAP, despite having promised to deliver justice, failed to do so. AAP leaders, on the other hand, pointed out that although the Congress came to power in Punjab in 2017 in the wake of the public outrage against the Akalis, they did not effectively bring the culprits to book.
Earlier, Sections 295 and 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) penalised acts that hurt religious sentiments.
After the IPC was replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), all incidents of sacrilege are covered under Sections 298 and 299.
Section 298 provides for imprisonment of up to two years, or a fine, or both, for any person who “destroys, damages or defiles any place of worship or any object held sacred by any class of persons” with the intention of insulting their religion.
Section 299 provides for imprisonment up to three years or a fine, or both, for any person who “with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India insults or attempts to insult the religion or religious beliefs”.
Section 298 replicates Section 295 of the IPC, while Section 299 replicates Section 295A of the IPC.
For some years now, Punjab has topped the country in the number of registered sacrilege cases. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that from 2018 to 2020, Punjab’s crime rate (number of cases divided by population in lakhs) registered under sections that deal with sacrilege was the highest.
In 2018, the sacrilege crime rate in the state was 0.7 percent, while in other states this ranged between 0.1 and 0.4 percent. The figure for Punjab was 0.6 percent in 2019 and 0.5 percent in 2020.
In 2017, when the NCRB first started providing data about these crimes, Goa registered the highest rate at 0.8 percent, and Punjab was the second-highest at 0.6 percent. The total number of such cases registered in Punjab from 2017 to 2020 was 721.
Punjab has attempted, at least three times in the past decade, to enact stricter anti-sacrilege provisions by amending central criminal law.
The 2016 amendment brought by the Shiromani Akali Dal–BJP government and the revised 2018 version under the Congress both sought to introduce life imprisonment for sacrilege through changes to the Indian Penal Code. Both efforts failed.
One was returned by the President after being termed “excessive in law”, while the other remained undecided for years before effectively lapsing.
Another notable feature of the amendment is its exclusive focus on the Guru Granth Sahib, even as the pending 2025 Bill seeks to cover all religious scriptures, including the Bhagavad Gita, the Quran and the Bible. This distinction is not accidental.
Sikh religious bodies have long argued that the Guru Granth Sahib occupies a unique position as a living Guru, and that any law must recognise this distinction rather than treating all scriptures identically.
By centering the law on the Guru Granth Sahib, the amendment aligns with that demand.
SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami, while presiding over a series of meetings of Sikh scholars last month to discuss legislative measures the government should take on sacrilege, stressed the distinction between general religious texts and Sri Guru Granth Sahib. He described the latter as the eternal, living Guru, bestowed with Guruship by the Sikh Gurus themselves. He said preserving the sanctity, honour, and supreme status of Sri Guru Granth Sahib is of utmost importance.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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