Say cheese moment for sacked SGPC official, courtesy Supreme court

Marriage it is said can very often get men into trouble. For an officer of the apex body governing Sikh affairs, an “embarrassing” photograph with his wife cost him his job. Luckily for him, the Supreme Court has ordered his reinstatement saying he didn’t resign voluntarily, but was coerced.

An ‘embarrassing’ photograph of Daljit Singh with a woman was published in the media four years ago. As it turns out, the woman in the photo was Singh’s wife, a fact that he had been reiterating all along. His wife also admitted that it was her in the picture that was splashed in Punjab’s vernacular dailies.

He, however, was accused of harming the Sikh Gurudrwara Prabhandak Committee (SGPC), where he worked as an assistant secretary.   The SGPC had called the photo ‘embarrassing’ because it had the backdrop of the couple’s bedroom.

In the internal inquiry, Singh who expressed ignorance about the source of the photograph was absolved of all charges of misconduct. Despite this, he “resigned’’ but later he challenged the SGPC decision saying he had been coerced to leave.
Rejecting his petition, the Punjab and Haryana high court in 2008 observed that he had not only “defamed the SGPC but also brought a bad name to the Sikh community”. It also said the SGPC had rightly relieved Singh of his job.

 Allowing Singh’s appeal against HC order, the apex court said this amounted to “termination of service’’ by the executive committee of the SGPC which wasn’t “legally valid”. A bench of justices RV Raveendran and AK Patnaik “quashed” the termination asking the SGPC to “forthwith reinstate” Singh.