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Sikh Gurdwaras (Amendment) Act 1930
— Its Genesis
Surjit Singh Gandhi
In the process of the working of Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925, new realisation came upon the S.G.P.C. There were errors in Schedule I of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925. Names of gurdwaras and revenue estates, tehsils and districts in which these were situated were entered wrongly under different columns, with the result that many legal implications arose with regard to their possession. Some such errors came to the notice of the members of the S.G.P.C. immediately after the passage of the Act, 1925 and were rectified through amendment by Bill No. 131 of the same year. But still there were a good number of errors of this type which warranted immediate correction, as for example, in Schedule I of the Act in item No. 124 in the fourth column for the word ‘Kiratpur,’ the word ‘Bhai Toli’ should have been substituted.
Besides this, many cases were filed with Gurdwara Tribunal disputing the claim of the S.G.P.C. regarding a place of worship to be considered a gurdwara or not. According to one estimate, their number up to 1930 swelled to 175, out of which on 129 cases the Tribunal gave its decisions. Such cases were mostly filed by Udasi Sadhus, Nirmalas and some old-time mahants. The line of argument of the disputants was that the places of worship under consideration were not Sikh Gurdwaras, as (i) they were not founded by the Sikhs; (ii) their primary purpose was not to disseminate Sikhism alone; (iii) the placing of Guru Granth Sahib alone could not prove that the institution where the sacred Granth was placed was a Sikh gurdwara; and (iv) the hereditary holders either as the owner or as the manager or as a minister were not Sikhs.
Doubtless all these points raised by the contestants to press their claim were vital, but the Sikh Gurdwaras Act was not affirmative and categorical on these points. There was a clause giving the definition. This clause reads as under :
“Sikh means person who professes Sikh religion; if any question arises as to whether any person is or is not a Sikh, he shall be deemed, respectively, to be or not to be a Sikh according as he makes or refers to make in such manner as the local government may prescribe the following declaration :
“I, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, solemnly affirm that I am a Sikh;
that I believe in Guru Granth Sahib;
that I believe in the ten Gurus.”2
This definition was sought to be to their own advantage by those who were affected by the provisions of the Act. A person could be called a Sikh if he professed the Sikh religion, but how about those who had raised or tended the shrines over generations ? The custodians who were being dispossessed of their shrines could say that they were not Sikhs in terms of the definition set down in the Act. The majority of the Sikhs were converts or descendants of converts from Hindu society. The Sikh society had to put up with Hindu accretions which were obviously irrelevant from the Sikh ideological point of view. This being so, Hindu customs continued to be tolerated, even followed at Sikh places of worship, and in view of this, any Sikh place of worship could be regarded as Hindu place of worship, if accretions were considered as vital to Sikhism, and if decision was based on them. In quite a large number of cases, the courts did pronounce their judgements to the effect that certain places of worship could not be considered as gurdwaras, because Hindu customs and Hindu mode of worship were followed and duly respected there. In this connection, the views of Sardar Ujjal Singh were very pertinent and thought provoking.
“Munna Lal’s3 judgement in a certain case was indicative of the extent of the harm which could accrue to the Sikh interests. He tried to divide present-day Sikhs into three categories : (i) Sanatan Sikhs; (ii) common Sikhs; (iii) Akalis. According to him, if a Sikh wears a janeoo, he remains no longer a Sikh, and if an untouchable is not allowed to enter a gurdwara, he concludes that the gurdwara is not established for the use of the Sikhs, because Sikhism does not recognise distinction of caste. If mere practices are to be taken into consideration in the cases of a deceased Sikh, it would be possible for any gurdwara to be declared a Sikh gurdwara or for that matter any Sikh to be declared a Sikh if he is no longer living to make the declaration.4 According to the definition applied to the deceased Sikh, it was not possible even for Maharaja Ranjit Singh or Maharaja Daleep Singh to strictly come under it. If this is to be strictly applied, even the Durbar Sahib could not be declared a Sikh Gurdwara.”5
The Sikh Gurdwaras Act was deficient in another respect too. The Sikh religion developed stage by stage. It certainly did not come into existence in a day. The ten Gurus lived at various times. But out of the four tests laid down by the Act for ascertaining that a particular property was a Sikh property or not, one is that he should declare that he believes in the ten Gurus. Now what about those Sikhs, who died earlier than Guru Gobind Singh ? Obviously, the definition of a ‘Sikh’ as per Sikh Gurdwaras Act 1925 is too narrow in its scope and includes only those Sikhs, who lived after the tenth Guru. According to this definition, no one could be called a Sikh unless he lived after the tenth Guru. This undoubtedly constituted a serious deficiency in the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, and the anxiety of the S.G.P.C. to get this defect rectified was understandable.
Besides this, in the definition is embodied that ‘Sikh’ means a person who professes the Sikh religion, but the word ‘professes’ caused difficulties. It might be argued in court that a man, who died 50 years ago had not been proved to have professed the Sikh religion. Therefore, he could not be called a Sikh. Judged in this light, even Maharaja Ranjit Singh could not be called a Sikh, because according to the present law, it was to be proved that he professed the Sikh religion, and if it could not be proved that he professed the Sikh religion, automatically he would be considered a non-Sikh. Besides this, the words, ‘is used’ in sub-sections I, II, III, IV and V of section 16 began to be interpreted in a very narrow sense. Most of the claimants laid their claims to the ownership of the property attached thereto on the plea that the institution or the property under dispute was not a gurdwara or the property of a gurdwara, because the gurdwara ‘is not used’ predominantly by Sikhs, as certain practices which were not recommended by orthodox Sikhism were being followed there. The framers of the Act probably thought that no such cases would come up, because in their reckoning almost all the places of Sikh worship were already in the control of the S.G.P.C. But the facts happened to be otherwise. The cases, in ample number, came before the Gurdwara Tribunal wherein the appellants tried to prove that certain places of worship in dispute should not be designated as Sikh gurdwaras because these were not being used predominantly by the Sikhs. Such cases were mostly brought before the Gurdwara Tribunal by the Udasis Dhirmalias, Nirmalas, etc. Quite a few individuals mostly mahants also filed such cases. Out of all the contestants to the claim of S.G.P.C., the Udasis were most vociferous and virulent.
In this connection, the judgement of Mr. Justice Coldstream on the 10th August, 1928 in case No. 12 under section 8 is at once significant and poignantly expressive.6
“For the purpose of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, ‘Sikh’ means a person who professes Sikh religion. The criteria deciding in case of dispute whether a living person professes the Sikh religion or not are that he must profess to believe in Guru Granth Sahib and the ten Gurus and to have no other religion. In deciding whether a dead person professed the Sikh religion, we are not bound, I think, to apply the definition, so far as we can come to a conclusion whether the person would have stated had he been asked if he believed in Guru Granth Sahib and had no other religion. It follows that a person who had some other religion than orthodox Sikhism could not be regarded as having been a Sikh for the purpose of the Act. My conclusion in the matter, therefore, is that words ‘for use by Sikhs’ in clause (iii) sub-section 2 of section 6 must be read to mean ‘for use of persons who are proved to have professed the Sikh religion, that is to say, who believed in Guru Granth Sahib and the ten Gurus and had no other religion’, and I think that the Akalis to prove their case must satisfy us by evidence that this particular shrine (Gurdwara Sahib Pukhta) situated in the revenue estate of Naushera Pannua, tehsil Tarn Taran of district Amritsar, was established with the clear intention that it should be used for public worship by orthodox Sikhs, whose religion was not Hinduism.”7
The difficulties had also been experienced owing to the fact that there was no provision in the Act authorising the Tribunal to grant decrees for possession of a gurdwara or the property of a gurdwara or both. The result had been double litigation. The S.G.P.C. had first to go to Gurdwara Tribunal for getting gurdwara or property attached thereto declared as ‘gurdwara’, and then to the court to get the decree for possession itself. This caused a lot of inconvenience and delay in getting justice, apart from the consequential social tension between the parties concerned.
Provision was, therefore, required to empower the Tribunal to pass a decree for possession in such cases.
Not only this, in the original Act only a district judge, or a sub-judge of the first class, or of not less than ten years’ standing or a barrister of not less than ten years’ standing or a person who had been a pleader of any High Court for an aggregate period of not less than ten years, could be appointed to the Judicial Commission. But ‘Munsif’ was the designation of the members of the judicial services before it was changed to ‘sub-judge.’8 The S.G.P.C. was to suggest a panel of names to the provincial government for making appointments to the said Commission, and it could not submit the names of the persons, who had acted as Munsifs, but who were otherwise qualified for the Judicial Commission. This lacuna was also to be removed.
Under sub-section (3) of section 42 of the Act, the Board (now S.G.P.C.) was a body corporate and must sue and be sued in its corporate name. No such provision, however, existed in respect of the committees of the management and when any of the bodies had to lodge or defend a suit, it became necessary to involve all the members as plaintiffs or defendants, the committees being unregistered.
Further, there were still errors in respect of names of certain revenue estates in Schedule I of the Act. Then there were certain administrative difficulties which warranted solution. For instance, certain committees did not meet for a long time because they were not called. Need arose that there must be some provision in the Act to enable at least two persons to call a meeting, if they jointly submitted a note to that effect.
In a sincere and serious quest for the remedy for the difficulties faced during functioning, the S.G.P.C. thought of putting forward as many as 46 amendments,9 and in fact even discussed them with Joint Secretary Transferred Department, Nawab Muzaffar Khan. But then it dropped quite a few of these at his advice so that only such amendments were retained as found favour with the Hindu members of the Punjab Legislative Council.10
A draft Bill incorporating all amendments was submitted by Sardar Ujjal Singh11 (Sikh Urban), who requested the House on 25th July, 1930, to take the Bill for consideration. Lala Mukand Lal Puri12 (Lahore city - Non-Muhammadan) begged to move that the Bill be circulated for eliciting public opinion thereon. This motion for amendment as referred to was not approved of by the House. Dr Gokal Chand Narang13 moved another amendment that the same should be referred to a Select Committee. Even this could not be carried, and the Bill was ultimately introduced in the Council. In the discussion that ensued, the Hindu and Muslim members took keen interest. The Hindu members who participated in the Punjab Legislative Council Proceedings seemed not to be happy with the Bill and raised obstructions and objections to its various clauses. Some of them went so far as to attribute ulterior motives to the mover and the S.G.P.C. They also read in this Bill a step towards communal consolidation and affirmation of the spirit of secession from the Hindus.
The main objections of the Hindu Councillors were :
i) “The Bill introduces changes of revolutionary character. It extends the scope of the Gurdwara Act beyond what was intended by original framers of the Bill. The definition of a ‘Sikh’ has been changed substantially in which attempt has been made to extend the definition of deceased Sikh to include what was not intended in the definition of a deceased Sikh given in section 2(9) of the Gurdwara Act. ‘Sikh’ means person who professed the Sikh religion. In the proposed amendment, the definition is that a Sikh ‘is a person’ who professes the Sikh religion or was known to be a Sikh during his lifetime. So far a Sikh who is deceased, it is not necessary that he should profess the Sikh religion but the mere fact that he was known to be a Sikh would absolve the Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee from proving anything more. It clearly extends the scope of the Act. This extension of the definition would enable the Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee to lay claim to properties which were not covered by the old Act.”14
According to Gokal Chand Narang,15 the expression ‘or was known to be’ is vague. He says, “‘or was known to be’ to whom ? The clause does not indicate to whom that person should be known to be a Sikh, whether two persons or three persons or to two thousand persons or only to the members of his family. The clause does not say specifically to whom that person should be known to be a Sikh during his lifetime. It may be all right in cases of historic personages. But if it is a case of a less known person, a private individual whose property comes to be disputed before a Sikh Gurdwara Tribunal, it would cause trouble.” Hindu members drew the attention of the House, particularly to the cases of Udasis who kept long hair, but could be mistaken as Sikhs and on this basis ‘known as Sikhs’ though individually.16
ii) Section 16(2)(iii) says that a gurdwara would be considered as a Sikh gurdwara if the Tribunal finds that the gurdwara was established for use of Sikhs. If the definition of ‘Sikh’ was extended, that would be tantamount to enabling the Akalis to claim property which could not be claimed under the previous Act.
iii) The Section 2 of the Bill makes the Bill retrospective. The section runs as follows :
“Notwithstanding anything contained in the said Act or any decision or order made by a Tribunal or the High Court, the amendments made in the said Act by section 2, 3 and 4 shall be applicable to all claims, petitions and suits in which the recording of evidence has not been concluded before the Tribunal at the commencement of this Act.”
The operation of this clause was altogether not liked by the Hindu members. The reasons were not far to seek. Firstly, it would apply to all pending litigation, which was obviously a very serious thing, for, it is very rarely found that the retrospective effect had been extended to such litigations. Secondly, it would be applicable even to a case where the point had already been adjudicated upon between the parties. Not only this, even the cases of appeal where the High Court after deciding the point in dispute remanded the case on some trivial point, would fall within the perimeter of the aforesaid sections and, thus, had to be looked at afresh by the courts.
The following excerpts from the speech of Dr Gokal Chand Narang, which he delivered in the Punjab Council on 25th July, 1930, are very significantly illustrative on the above-stated points :
“..... I cannot help submitting that this clause 11(1) is an objectionable clause. It is unprecedented, most inequitable and irregular. It means that even if the High Court has confirmed the judgement of the Tribunal on certain points, all these decisions would be set aside. Rights which have accrued to parties to the litigation pending before the Tribunal in virtue of decisions in their favour would be set aside...”17
“My only anxiety is that we should not make the case of those persons harder, who have already suffered under the Act. Therefore, when points have been decided in their favour and certain rights have accrued to them, they should not be taken away by one stroke of the pen by this House, particularly, when the parties concerned have absolutely no hand in it.”18
“It is really passing decrees against persons who do not even know decrees are being passed against them. I appeal to the sense of fairness of reasonableness, sense of equity of the honourable mover to view the matter from that point of view and not to make the retrospective effect so wide as this clause would make.”
iv) The Bill has not been published even in Punjab Gazette not to say of its publication in any English or vernacular Newspaper (M.L. Puri).19
v) The judges20 of the Gurdwara Tribunal have not been consulted before putting forth the amendment before the House. Surely, the House must have got a very sound piece of advice from them, which they, in fact, were capable of giving because of their experience in gurdwara affairs. The Hindu members alleged that the amendment was being introduced with a motive of revising the judgement of Mr Justice Coldstream, which he held in a case which came up before him.21
vi) The views of the most affected party have not been taken cognizance of. The General Secretary of Udasin Mahamandal views with great alarm the Sikh Gurdwaras Amending Bill to be introduced in the Punjab Legislative Council shortly. The Act of 1925 is already regarded as a piece of unjust legislation, because it has already scheduled numerous important deras as Sikh gurdwaras without providing for a judicial inquiry. The amendments are calculated to easily bring the remaining institutions of the sadhus into the clutches of the Sikhs.22 The result will be appalling for Udasi sadhus particularly. They want the Government not to support it; otherwise the belief will be conjured that the Government wants to placate the unruly and turbulent Sikhs at the cost of peaceful and meditating sadhus.
vii) “The Bill impinges on the interests and rights of Udasis who have been in possession of the property for years together. By attempting to define afresh the term ‘Sikh,’ the Udasis who are in possession of gurdwaras for a long time are likely to suffer in terms of their interest and rights.”23
The Hindu members were adequately answered. The President of the Council made it clear that articles 78 and 79 of Business Manual read together made it perfectly clear that publication of the Bill was not a condition precedent to a motion for the consideration of a Bill.24
Sardar Bahadar Ujjal Singh explained that the Bill was published in the Tribune of the 16th or 17th July, 1930.25 Sardar Harbakhsh Singh stated that when the amended Bill was prepared, most of the Hindu members as representatives of Udasis met the Minister for Local Self Government, Sir Feroz Khan Noon and Nawab Muzaffar Ali and arrived at certain agreements. Hence, the argument that the Bill had not been given publicity beforehand, had no foundation when the parties concerned fully knew the details of the Bill.
The clause in which the word ‘Sikh’ is defined is absolutely necessary. In various judgements, judges on the Tribunal as well as on High Courts had faced difficulty in defining a Sikh who was dead. Being dead, he could not make declaration to the effect that he professed that he was a Sikh as per requirement of the Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925. Besides, it was found that the definition of a ‘Sikh’ in the Sikh Gurdwara Act was not all-inclusive in the sense it could not embrace those persons as Sikhs who had taken birth before the tenth Guru. To overcome this difficulty, the Bill says that even those persons who were known to be Sikhs could be considered as Sikhs.26 One of the conditions to be a Sikh is that one should declare that one has faith in the ten Gurus. Obviously, the person who left the world for heavenly abode before the tenth Guru, but had full faith in earlier Gurus, could not be regarded as a Sikh.27 This on the face of it, looked irrational. The clause II of the Bill simply aims at eliminating of this too obvious a defect. The new Bill is not a departure from the principles underlying the old Bill and it only tries to clear up a definition of the old Act. It is not a case of the exclusion of the principles of the old Act.28
Similarly, the argument of the Hindu members that the Bill intended to seek its operation with retrospective effect was met adequately by Sardar Ujjal Singh and Sir Feroz Khan Noon, Minister for Local Self Government. He said :
“The Bill does not seek to give retrospective effect at all to the cases, which have been decided by the Tribunal or by the High Court. It seeks to apply it only to cases in which evidence has not been completed and to cases which are pending before the Tribunal. Such cases are about 70 or 75 in number. In most cases, issues have not been framed and only 3 to 4 cases are in an advanced stage. If the Bill does not apply to these cases, then they would be deprived of the benefit of this Bill.”
“The Bill does not aim at the usurpation of the rights of certain persons or sections of the people. It aims at genuine attempts at acquiring and preserving Sikh gurdwaras and properties attached to them.”
A heated discussion took place on sub-clause(i) of clause 4 of the Bill. Gokal Chand Narang put forth amendment to the sub-clause (i) which was as under :
“That the following be substituted for sub-clause (i) of clause 4 :
When it has been decided under the provisions of this Act that a right, title and interest in an immoveable property belongs or does not belong to a notified Sikh gurdwara, the party in whose favour the declaration is made, may after the appeal, if any, has been disposed of the possession of the right, title and interest concerned and the Tribunal shall pass a decree for possession thereof.”
As it is clear from the amendment, Dr Gokal Chand Narang laid emphasis on the fact that the Tribunal should pass a decree for possession only after the decision of the appeal against the party in whose favour the declaration was made by the Tribunal was disposed of by the High Court.
The rationale behind this, as Dr Gokal Chand Narang vouchsafed, was that if a decree was passed by the Tribunal in favour of a party, the same could be executed forthwith. In such case, appeal could be made to the High Court only, which might take quite a long time to give decision. In the meanwhile, the property might be damaged or it might suffer deterioration owing to gross neglect. This being so, he suggested by way of amendment that the decree of possession in case of immoveable property should not be executed till final appeal which was the only appeal one was allowed to submit, was disposed of by the High Court.29
Sardar Ujjal Singh,30 Sardar Harbakhsh Singh,31 Nawab Muzaffar Khan, Director Information Bureau, pleaded very strongly that the Bill did not in any way impinge unnecessarily on the rights of any citizen. Sardar Ujjal Singh pointed out that a suit for possession could now be entertained only in Civil Court. No provision in the Bill had been made for filing a suit for possession in the Tribunal. If there was any apprehension that the property was likely to be deteriorated, the aggrieved party was free to appeal to the High Court against the decree for possession or could submit an application to the High Court for staying the proceedings in a suit for possession. In that case, the High Court only, if it was satisfied, would order to that effect to the lower court.32
The Hindu members averred that under the present law under this Act, no order passed by the Tribunal was appealable and no order passed by the Tribunal was revisable except the final order. This being so, in ordinary cases, if something happened, or there was a danger of property deteriorating or something else happening, the party likely to be injured could at once go to the High Court and get relief, which under this Bill was not possible.33
To make the argument more forceful and poignant, it was argued that if the possession was given to the S.G.P.C. before the appeal was disposed of, and later, if the appeal was accepted, it could be impossible for a poor mahant to get back the possession of the property from such a powerful respondent as the S.G.P.C., and it would certainly create many complications. Further, if the appeal took two or three years to be decided, there would also arise the question of mesne34 profits and that would also create further complications because it would not be an easy thing for an ordinary poor mahant or sadhu to recover the mesne profits from the S.G.P.C. and recover possession.
Another likely fall-out of the amendment might be the fomentation of inter-community tension during the process of taking and restoring possession. Ultimately, after a good deal of discussion, the motion was dropped.
Similarly, another motion seeking to invalidate the clause giving a retrospective effect to the Bill was defeated. The motion was put forward by Mukand Lal Puri.35 He moved that in clause (11)(i), the last but one line, the word ‘commenced’ be substituted for the word ‘concluded’ :
The Bill having been discussed clause by clause was passed with three minor changes which were of a very ordinary nature and did not at all affect the vital points contained in the Bill.
i) In clause (4) in the 12th line of the new section 25-A(i), the words “on behalf of the gurdwara” were omitted.
ii) In clause 4 in the 21st line of the said new section, the following words were inserted between the words ‘gurdwara’ and ‘pass’, : “or to the person in whose favour the declaration has been made”.
iii) In clause 11, at the end of the 7th line after the figure 4, “of this amending Act” was included.
Of the participants in the discussion that raged over the Bill, four were Hindus and all of them spoke in a tone that certainly reflected that they were not happy and had reservations. The Hindu councillors who opposed certain clauses of the Bill were Dr Gokal Chand Narang, Mukand Lal Puri, Pt. Nanak Chand and Lala Kesho Ram Sikhri. All of them had strong Hindu communal bias. They had joined the Swarajist party when it came into being in the Punjab, but even as Swarajists, they did not ignore their class interests. They always championed the cause which promoted the Hindu interests, and opposed those which went against them. When the election to the Third Reform Council drew near, Lala Lajpat Rai, who enjoyed unquestionable support in the province, particularly among the Hindu merchants, money-lenders and professional groups, said that the Swaraj party members had no chance of winning election because they had lost the confidence of the Hindus. He appealed to the electorates to vote in the forthcoming elections only for those candidates who were prepared to serve their constituencies throughout the term of the council and support the interest of their respective communities consistently.36 Lala Lajpat Rai and Madan Mohan Malviya even established the Nationalist Party in North India in August 1926 and, in cooperation with the Hindu Sabha, started working actively against the Congress candidates. Dr Gokal Chand Narang and others also shifted their loyalties to the Nationalist Party and the Hindu Sabha. This being the case, they could not but oppose the Bill which went, as they considered, against the interest of mahants and udasis and all others who were Hindu according to their thinking.
The Bill passed in 1930 became the Sikh Gurdwaras Amendment Act, 1930. The Act contained eleven clauses in all. The clause I simply said that the Act would be called as Sikh Gurdwaras (Amendment) Act 1930. Clause II was very important as it gave the definition of a Sikh, quite different from the one which was given in the original Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925. According to clause II, ‘Sikh’ means a person who professes the Sikh religion or in the case of a deceased person who professed the Sikh religion or was known to be a Sikh during the lifetime. If any question arises as to whether any living person is or is not a Sikh, he shall be deemed, respectively, to be or not to be a Sikh according as he makes or refuses to make in such manner as the local Government may prescribe the following declaration :
“I solemnly affirm that I am a Sikh;
that I believe in Guru Granth Sahib;
that I believe in the ten Gurus; and
that I have no other religion.”
Clause 3 stated that even those places, which were not used as gurdwara could be considered as gurdwara, while in the original, only those places could be considered as gurdwara which were being presently used.
Clause 5 laid down the condition that if a person having been elected or nominated a member of the Board absented himself from three consecutive general meetings of the Board, his name might be removed from membership of the Board, provided that, if he applied to the Board within one month of the removal of his name to be restored to membership, the Board might, at the meeting next following the date of the receipt of such application restore him to office, and provided further that no member would be restored more than three times. Similar conditions were laid down by clause 8 for the elected or nominated member of the committees. Clause 6 enabled a Munsif of the first class or of not less than ten years’ standing. Clause 7 considered the committee of management of gurdwaras or gurdwara under its management as a corporate body and enabled it to sue or be sued in its corporate name. It was also awarded perpetual succession and a common seal.
Clause 9 held, if no meeting had been held for a period of four months, any two members of the Committee, by giving reasonable notice, could convene a meeting.
References and notes
1. Sikh Gurdwaras (Amendment) Bill was introduced by Bhai Jodh Singh. It intended to correct some mistakes in the details of Schedule I of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925 and to amend Schedule IV of the Act so as to substitute single member constituency for the election of the member of the Board for plural member constituencies provided for in the existing schedule.
The Indian Annual Register, 1926, Vol. I.
The Punjab Legislative Council 11-13 January, 1926, pages. 323-24.
H.N. Mitra, N.N. Mitra, Gian Publishing House, New Delhi.
2. Part I, Chapter I, Clause 2(9) Gurdwaras Act, 1925.
3. Munna Lal was the Judge of the Tribunal.
4. Punjab Legislative Council Debates 20th July, 1930, Speech of Sardar Ujjal Singh, XVI, p. 61.
5. Ibid.
6. Punjab Legislative Council Debates, 25th July, 1930 XVI-4, pp. 65-66. Typescript Akal College for Women, Sangrur.
7. Ibid.
8. Section 12 (1, 2, 3 and 4) Sikh Gurdwaras Act.
9. Punjab Legislative Council Debates, July 1930, XVI-4, p. 27. Speech by Sardar Ujjal Singh - Typescript op.cit.
10. Punjab Legislative Council Debates, 25th July, 1930, XIV-4, p. 21.
11. Ibid. p. 1.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid, p. 33.
14. Ibid, p.2, Speech of Lala Mukand Lal.
15. Ibid, Speech by Gokal Chand Narang.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid. pp. 86-87.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid. pp. 87-88.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. The President of Udasis District Mandal, Ludhiana, writes : “The Sikh Gurdwaras Act has already ruined the Udasi Sadhus. If the Government accepted the amendments to be presented by some Sikh members in the July Session of the Punjab Legislative Council, those Udasi Sadhus, who had hopes of some safety will be totally ruined. Unless the Government is bent upon ruining them, it should not support the suggested amendments.” (The Tribune, July 23, 1930).
23. Punjab Legislative Council Debates 25th July, 1930, XVI-4, p. 14, Speech by Kesho Ram Sekhri.
24. Ibid. p. 17, Speech by the President.
25. Ibid. p. 25.
26. Ibid. p. 18, Speech by Feroz Khan Noon. Typescript op. cit.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Punjab Legislative Council, 26th July, 1930, XVI-4, p. 73, Speech by Gokal Chand Narang.
30. Ibid. p. 77.
31. Ibid. p. 75.
32. Ibid. p. 77.
33. Ibid. p. 76.
34. Ibid. p. 81.
35. The amendment section, according to Mukand Lal Puri would then read as under : “Notwithstanding anything contained in the said Act, the amendment made in the Act by Section 2, 3 and 4 shall be applicable to all clauses, petitions and suits in which the recording of evidence has not been concluded before the Tribunal at the commencement of this Act.
36. Punjab Legislative Council, 25th July, 1930, XVI-4, p. 86.
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