A curious controversy has been raging in Punjab. The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) has been fighting for minority status for Sikhs.
No says SC, but Punjab govt feels short-changed CHANDIGARH: A curious controversy has been raging in Punjab. The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) has been fighting for minority status for Sikhs, who constitute 58% of the 2.5 crore population of the state.
The SGPC has taken up cudgels for the cause just to ensure that it does not lose its right to select 50% students from among Sikhs for admission to SGPC-run educational institutions.
This right was bestowed on SGPC in 2001 when the then Akali Dal-BJP government led by Parkash Singh Badal issued a notification saying Sikhs were a minority and hence entitled to reservation in SGPC’s educational institutions, which include two medical colleges, two engineering colleges, a nursing college and a large number of degree colleges and schools.
The notification sparked a controversy in Punjab. Sahil Mittal, a boy from Barnala city, seeking admission to Guru Ram Dass Institute of Medical Sciences in Amritsar, challenged it in Punjab and Haryana high court, saying that since the medical college he was seeking admission to was in Punjab where Sikhs were not a minority, the 50% reservation was illegal.
In December last, a division bench of the high court ruled the notification “null and void”. It observed that “there was nothing to prove that as a group, Sikhs apprehended deprivation of their religious, cultural or educational rights in the state of Punjab from any other community, who may be in majority and who may gain political power in the elections.”
The counsel for the government had, however, contended that the minority status to Sikhs was given since SGPC controlled gurdwaras in four states—Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh—where Sikhs were an overall minority.
However, there is now fresh debate. “Is the government trying to say that Sikhs do not exist independent of SGPC? It would be simply preposterous and absurd,” said Kanwar Pal Singh, secretary of the Dal Khalsa. He said SGPC had 54 lakh Sikhs on its rolls, whereas the Sikh population in Punjab was close to 1.3 crore.
b_ajay@dnaindia.net 
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