Chandigarh: Occasional tension between the Akal Takht and the Punjab government isn’t unusual. But on Monday, the friction took a rare turn when the Akal Takht, highest temporal body of the Sikhs, summoned Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to its secretariat on 15 January to “explain” his alleged “anti-Sikh” conduct.
Mann is only the second sitting Punjab chief minister to be summoned by the Akal Takht after Surjit Singh Barnala in the 1980s. Reacting to the summon, Mann said he would appear before the Akal Takht like a “humble Sikh and not as the chief minister”.
“I will be going to the Akal Takht barefoot as nothing for me is as important as the highest seat of authority of the Sikhs,” he wrote on X.
A press statement by Akal Takht said Mann was repeatedly making objectionable remarks violating Sikh Rehat Maryada, or code of conduct, while challenging the Takht’s supreme authority. It added that Mann questioned the principle of “Guru Ki Golak” (monetary offerings to the guru) blessed by the Sikh Gurus, thereby deeply hurting Sikh sentiments.
The summons came just weeks after the Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab revived a five-year-old controversy and registered a police case over alleged discrepancies in the printing and distribution of 328 saroops (copies) of the Guru Granth Sahib, naming employees of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which manages historical gurdwaras in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh.
The SGPC has termed the move a “dramatic” resurrection of a five-year-old issue, alleging that the Mann government’s intention is to dent the rising popularity of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) by casting aspersions on the SGPC.
Mann dismissed the SGPC’s claims, saying that his government had the right to investigate the case and take it to its logical conclusion.
Commentators ThePrint spoke to see it as a political move by the AAP to highlight a potentially emotive religious issue ahead of the 2027 assembly elections.
“For Sikhs, every copy of the Guru Granth Sahib is treated with utmost reverence, and even a single unaccounted-for copy is a matter of concern. The alleged disappearance of hundreds of such saroops can strike a deep chord among Sikhs, stirring anger over perceived sacrilege and mismanagement by SGPC, which is controlled by the SAD,” said Dr Kanwalpreet Kaur of the department of political science at DAV College, Sector 10, Chandigarh.
Manjit Singh, former professor of sociology at Panjab University in Chandigarh, told ThePrint that by ordering an FIR and a criminal investigation, Mann had projected himself as acting on long-standing public anger over the controversy. “But the manner in which the entire sequence of events has played out, five years after the incident, points towards Mann getting unnerved by SAD’s possible comeback to the forefront of Punjab politics.”
Here, ThePrint explains the issue of the missing saroops of the Guru Granth Sahib and how the Mann government revived it with renewed urgency, political overtones and criminal action, dragging not just SGPC but also SAD and its leadership into the eye of a storm.
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How it began: The arrests
On 1 January, Punjab police arrested Satinder Singh Kohli, SGPC’s former chartered accountant and internal auditor, from Chandigarh. Kohli, once a close associate of Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal, was arrested in connection with the unaccounted sale of 328 saroops of the Guru Granth Sahib by the SGPC in 2020.
Kohli’s arrest followed the registration of an FIR on 7 December, against 16 people—including SGPC’s former chief secretary Roop Singh—under various sections of the IPC related to criminal conspiracy, breach of trust and religious offences.
On Saturday, 63-year-old Kanwaljit Singh, a former assistant supervisor of SGPC’s publishing house, was arrested in the same case. More arrests are expected to follow.
The case was registered five years after the matter was probed by a three-member independent inquiry committee constituted by SGPC.
The controversy centres around the Guru Granth Sahib, which is considered a living guru and cannot be bought commercially. Copies can only be printed and distributed by the SGPC, which produces them at the Golden Offset Press at the Gurdwara Ramsar Sahib in Amritsar, and stores them at Guru Granth Sahib Bhawan, from where they are dispatched on demand. They cost between Rs 750 and Rs 1,250, depending on the size.
Obtaining a saroop by an individual or a gurdwara involves a lengthy procedure that starts with a written application to the SGPC. An SGPC committee visits the house/place where the saroop would be installed. Once the committee gives its nod, the saroop is dispatched through five Singh Sahiban (high priests) and ceremoniously installed in their presence.
In May 2020, just before his retirement, Kanwaljit Singh alleged that 267 saroops had been dispatched without being logged in official records.
His claim led to a furore, prompting Punjab Human Rights Organisation, an NGO led by former Punjab & Haryana High Court judge Ajit Singh Bains, to file a complaint with the then jathedar of the Akal Takht, Giani Harpreet Singh, seeking a probe.
A three-member committee, headed by advocate Isher Singh of Telangana High Court, was tasked with an inquiry. In its over 1,000-page report submitted to the Akal Takht on 24 August 2020, the committee said that during the two years it probed, 2013-15, as many as 328 saroops printed were unaccounted for. The report said another 80 saroops were burnt in a fire in 2016, an incident it claimed was downplayed by the SGPC.
It added that determining how many more saroops were unaccounted for since 2015 would be a “Herculean task” as the records had been maintained “very poorly”.
SGPC promises FIR but retracts
The report indicted 16 SGPC employees, including the then chief secretary Roop Singh, secretary Manjit Singh and Kohli, the chartered accountant. It suggested that to circumvent the long procurement process which takes several months, some VIPs and NRIs may have allegedly obtained copies through SGPC employees without proper entries in official records. The report also indicated that the money was allegedly pocketed by the employees. While some of the 16 employees were dismissed, others were suspended.
Roop Singh and Manjit Singh tendered their resignation. The committee had recommended that 75 percent of the professional fees (amounting to Rs 7.2 crore) paid to Kohli be recovered as he had not done his work of keeping accounts properly.
The SGPC moved the Shiromani Gurdwara Judicial Commission (SGJC) against Kohli to recover the money, where the case is still pending. Established under the Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925, SGJC is a quasi-judicial body that resolves disputes related to the management, administration and employees of gurdwaras under the SGPC.
Though the report added that the matter should not be taken to the police for inquiry as “corruption was rampant across the world and cases were weakened in police stations”, the SGPC executive committee declared it would get an FIR lodged against erring employees.
However, in September, the then SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal said at a press conference that an FIR would not be lodged as the SGPC executive committee had decided not to allow an outside agency to interfere in its affairs.
That same month, the general house of the SGPC met and a resolution was passed, apologising to the Sikh community and the Khalsa panth for the “negligence”.
Sikh body demands FIR
In December 2020, a Sikh activist body, the Sikh Sadbhavna Dal, moved the district courts in Amritsar seeking registration of an FIR. The court, while dismissing the plea in April 2021, noted that Amritsar Police made it clear that the SGPC was a “self -dependent organisation competent to take its internal management-related decisions on its own…and strict action in the matter had already been taken against the accused by the SGPC”.
The Sikh Sadbhavna Dal moved the high court in November 2021, challenging the order of the Amritsar court.
Amritsar police told the court that SGPC had taken action against the erring officials “in accordance with its rules and regulations” following orders from the five Singh Sahiban issued from the Sri Akal Takht Sahib, which is considered the highest court of the Sikhs, after considering the report of the internal committee formed by the SGPC.
“This is the official stand of the Amritsar police in the matter submitted to the high court. How are they now justifying the registration of a case in the same matter,” SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami remarked at a press conference last week.
While this matter was pending in the high court, a series of parallel developments took place last year.
On 21 November 2024, Gurvatan Singh, along with 19 others, sent a legal notice to Punjab government alleging that a “heinous crime had been committed under the management of the Shiromani Committee. The notice said Punjab government should act immediately to recover the missing Guru Granth Sahib copies and also take appropriate legal action against the culprits. In March 2025, they sent a reminder legal notice to the chief secretary.
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PIL led to FIR?
In August 2025, Gurvatan Singh filed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking action in the matter while referring to legal notices sent to the government. When the matter came up for hearing on 7 August, Punjab government contended the petitioners should approach the Sikh Gurdwara Judicial Commission in accordance with the Sikh Gurdwara Act.
However, during the next hearing on 27 August, the Punjab government informed the court that the chief secretary was handling the matter and had, on 18 August, asked the police chief to initiate action in the matter.
A division bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sanjiv Berry disposed of the petition, saying that they “hoped and expected” that “appropriate steps would be taken by the functionaries of the state, in accordance with the law, as expeditiously as possible”.
“On August 7, the government is taking a stand that the matter should be handled by the SGJC. And some days later, the government is taking a stand that the chief secretary has asked the police to look into the matter. These are dramatic turns of events,” Dhami told the press conference last week.
“Moving a public interest petition while a case on the same matter is still going on and is now listed to be heard in February, and then the government changing its stands from what it was in a lower court in Amritsar to the one in the High Court in the same case is shocking,” Dhami added.
In October, Gurvatan Singh filed a contempt petition against the DGP for failing to act on the orders issued by the court in August. The court issued a notice to the government.
The case was to come up for hearing on 16 December, before which the case was registered on 7 December.
The case was registered on the complaint of the sacked Golden Temple hazuri raagi (singer of hymns) Baldev Singh Wadala, chief of the Sikh Sadbhawna Dal, who has been staging a “permanent” dharna at Heritage Street leading to the Golden Temple, seeking criminal action in the matter.
The case was registered under the Indian Penal Code for injuring or defiling a place of worship or sacred object with intent to insult a religion, deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings, criminal breach of trust, forgery and criminal conspiracy.
All 16 persons indicted in the Isher Singh inquiry report were named in the FIR.
A special investigation team (SIT) has been constituted to probe the case.
Why the political storm
The reopening of the case, registration of an FIR and Kohli’s arrest have triggered a political storm. Addressing a press conference last week, Mann accused the SGPC of shielding those responsible and evading accountability for years.
“The SGPC first declared that it would register an FIR but backed out because the case would have the culpability of its top leaders,” said the chief minister. He added that even five years after the recovery suit filed by SGPC against Kohli, nothing had been returned.
“This is because he (Kohli) was the CA of Sukhbir Badal,” the chief minister alleged.
He added that several Sikh bodies had approached the government, suspecting that the 328 saroops could have been stolen and needed to be recovered. “In 2020, the SGPC had tasked Dhami, who was then the general secretary of the SGPC, to recover these saroops, but he has done nothing despite having become the president,” said Mann.
The SGPC leadership termed this a direct attack on the independence of the top Sikh institutions, adding that the matter was revived with an eye on the 2027 assembly polls.
“The idea is to generate a false narrative against them just the way it was done about the sacrilege incidents ahead ofthe 2017 elections. There is no element of sacrilege or the stealing of the Guru Granth Sahib in this case as it is being projected,” said Dhami last week.
A series of sacrilege incidents involving the Guru Granth Sahib and other holy texts rocked Punjab in 2015 when the SAD-BJP was in power. The Opposition at the time blamed the government for failing to nab those responsible for the incidents. Two Sikh activists protesting alleged government inaction were killed in police firing.
The controversy snowballed into a major electoral issue in the 2017 assembly elections, in which the SAD and BJP suffered a major defeat, with Congress coming to power and AAP donning the role of the opposition. The AAP again raised the issue against the SAD ahead of the 2022 assembly elections, contributing to the AAP’s victory.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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