Do not write off the Satkar Act……by KBS Sidhu

The Satkar Amendment is constitutionally defensible at its core — and the case against it is weaker than Justice Sodhi argues

Editor’s Note: On 2 June 2026, The Tribune published an opinion piece by Justice R.S. Sodhi (Retd.), Former Judge, Delhi High Court, titled “Keep the Altar and the Assembly Apart,” arguing that the Jaagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar (Amendment) Act, 2026 is constitutionally flawed and should be withdrawn. The piece is a serious contribution to an important debate. This article engages with it directly — acknowledging where Justice Sodhi is right, adding a factual update that is not yet in the public domain, and respectfully but firmly contesting the constitutional argument at the heart of his case.

Justice R.S. Sodhi’s article in The Tribune of 2 June 2026 is a serious and welcome contribution to a debate that Punjab has conducted with far too little constitutional rigour. A former judge of the Delhi High Court bringing precision to a discussion dominated by political posturing is something this writer applauds unreservedly.

But on two significant points — one factual, one constitutional — Justice Sodhi’s analysis is incomplete. And on one central question, this writer respectfully but firmly differs: what, in law and in theology, is Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji? The answer to that question determines the answer to every other question in this controversy.

Where We Agree — And a Factual Correction

Justice Sodhi and this writer agree on the administrative overreach. The provisions of the Amendment mandating a Central Register of Saroops, Unique Identification Numbers, custodian duties, and public disclosure of custodians’ identities push the State into territory protected by Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution. The landmark Shirur Mutt ruling of 1954 drew a foundational line between “matters of religion” — over which a religious denomination enjoys near-complete autonomy — and secular activities that the State may regulate. The physical custody and reverential management of Saroops of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is not a secular activity. It is among the most sacred obligations of the Sikh Panth. That the legislation was passed without consulting Sri Akal Takht Sahib or the SGPC compounds the error significantly.

On the concern that granthis, gurdwara committees, and ordinary devotees may face criminal prosecution for accidental lapses, Justice Sodhi’s anxiety is understandable but, this writer is reliably informed, is being addressed. Statutory rules presently being framed under the parent Act will limit the criminal culpability of custodians strictly to cases of actual malice — deliberate and wilful failure to discharge custodial duties. Casual negligence and good-faith lapses will not attract criminal liability. This distinction between malice and negligence is constitutionally and morally essential. The government would serve the public interest considerably by placing this on record without further delay.

Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Is Sui Generis — Answering the Article 14 Challenge

It is on Justice Sodhi’s Article 14 argument that this writer must, with great respect, take firm issue. He contends that the Act fails the constitutional equality test because it singles out one religion’s scripture for special penal protection while leaving all others unaddressed — and that this is the ground on which the Punjab and Haryana High Court is being asked to quash it. With respect, this argument rests on a premise that is both theologically unsound and constitutionally inadequate: that Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is, for Article 14 purposes, equivalent to other sacred texts.

It is not. Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is sui generis — in a class entirely its own in the entire landscape of world religion. The Quran is the revealed word of God. The Bible is divine inspiration. The Bhagavad Gita is the Lord’s counsel. All are sacred; all are central to the spiritual lives of vast communities. But none is the living, sovereign, perpetual Guru of its community in the precise theological and juristic sense that Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is for the Sikh Panth.

When Guru Gobind Singh Ji vested Guruship in the Granth Sahib in perpetuity at Hazur Sahib in 1708, he did not merely designate an authoritative scripture. He transferred the living office of the Guru itself. The Sikh Panth has had no human Guru for over three centuries. Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is the Guru — not metaphorically or devotionally, but theologically and juristically. The Sangat rises at its entry. Hukamnamas — sovereign commands — are issued in its name. The entire institutional and spiritual life of the Panth is organised around its living presence. No other scripture in any religious tradition anywhere in the world makes this claim in this sense. There is no parallel. There is no equivalence.

The Article 14 test prohibits arbitrary classification — not differential treatment of genuinely different things. The intelligible differentia here is self-evident: Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is not a text accorded special reverence. It is the Guru. A court applying Article 14 in good faith cannot collapse that distinction without first ruling, by judicial fiat, that the foundational theology of Sikhism is constitutionally irrelevant — which would itself be an impermissible intrusion into the essential religious autonomy that Article 26(b) guarantees. The Article 14 argument, on proper analysis, defeats itself.

The Penal Core Is Defensible — But the Past Cannot Be Undone

On the penal core of the Amendment, the State stands on firmer constitutional ground than Justice Sodhi allows. The Supreme Court held in Ramji Lal Modi v. State of U.P. (AIR 1957 SC 620) that deliberate religious insult bears a proximate relationship to public disorder in a plural society. Punjab’s own history makes that relationship tragically concrete: the sacrilege incidents of 2015 produced mass protests, two deaths by police firing at Behbal Kalan, and a political crisis whose consequences are felt to this day. The State had compelling constitutional reason to legislate. The penal core of the Amendment — enhanced punishment, expanded definition of beadbi, inclusion of digital and symbolic acts — is constitutionally defensible on public order grounds. The administrative superstructure erected alongside it is where the genuine constitutional vulnerability lies.

There is, however, one truth that no legislation can reach and that no politician has stated plainly enough. The 2026 Amendment cannot touch the 2015 cases. Article 20(1) of the Constitution bars retrospective penal operation absolutely. The sacrilege at Bargari, the firing at Behbal Kalan — these will be tried, if at all, under the law of 2015, not 2026. The new law deters future desecration. It delivers nothing to those who were wronged a decade ago. Every politician who has implied otherwise has misled the public, and the public deserves to know it.

The Way Forward — And a Question Punjab Must Answer

The path forward requires distinguishing the defensible from the indefensible within the Act itself: retain the penal core, revisit the administrative provisions through genuine consultation with the SGPC and Sri Akal Takht Sahib, and — most urgently — appoint a Senior Advocate of standing as Special Public Prosecutor for the Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan firing trials now before the courts in Chandigarh.

No law prescribing life imprisonment for future acts of sacrilege carries genuine moral credibility while the cases arising from past sacrilege — and from the police bullets that killed Gurjeet Singh and Krishan Bhagwan Singh at Behbal Kalan on 14 October 2015 — remain, a decade on, without a single charge framed.

Justice Sodhi asks whether Punjab can legislate faith without eventually violating it. This writer asks a different question. Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is the living, eternal Guru of the Sikh Panth — a theological reality without parallel in the religious landscape of India or the world. If that reality is not to be recognised and respected in Punjab, the land of the Gurus, where in the world is it to find recognition? That is not rhetoric. It is a constitutional and moral question that the courts, the legislature, and the Government of Punjab must answer with the gravity and the humility it deserves.

June 3, 2026