CHANDIGARH: The Punjab assembly on Tuesday unanimously decided to refer the anti-sacrilege bill 'Punjab Prevention of Offences Against Holy Scriptures Bill, 2025' to a Select Committee of MLAs for consultation with all stakeholders before it is enacted.
On the concluding day of the special session of the assembly, Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan said after a three-and-a-half-hour debate that the panel will gather public input on the Bill and will submit its report on the bill within six months.
The bill was tabled in the House on Monday by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann who had earlier proposed a four-month timeline.
The bill proposes stringent penalties for sacrilege-related offences, prescribing a minimum sentence of 10 years, extendable to life imprisonment, along with fines ranging from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring accused the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab of playing with the sentiments of people by enacting a drama of passing a law against sacrilege and then referring it to a select committee.
"This is yet another ‘futile periodical exercise’ to bide time," Warring said about the 'Sacrilege Bill' here today.
"If the government was really sincere, it should have acted on the SIT report gathering dust in its corridors," he suggested, while remarking, "this is a clear attempt to divert the public attention and shield the culprits."
He said the government has only tried to divert attention from bringing real culprits to book and postponing the matter for an uncertain period.
Warring asked if the bill was to be referred to a select committee, what was the point in presenting it before the house. "This was just an exercise to fool the people of Punjab and bide time," he observed.
Warring said, given past experience about laws being passed and sent for presidential assent, this law, even if passed after six months may take a few years to be implemented.
"The government has given six months to the select committee without any condition that its time will not be extended further," he said, while adding, "even if the process is completed in the stipulated period, it will take more time for its passage. Then it will go to the Governor and eventually to the President of India, and all of us know how much time the entire process will take, that too only if no objections are queries are raised."
Meanwhile Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) asserted both the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were politicising the sensitive issue of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib for their political ambitions even as it asked leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa to tell why the erstwhile Congress government did nothing to either probe or punish the perpetrators responsible for this heinous crime.
Reacting to Partap Bajwa’s statement in the Vidhan Sabha, in which the former claimed that the AAP government had failed to charge sheet both former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal in the cases of sacrilege of 2015, SAD vice president Parambans Singh Romana condemned Bajwa for showing double standards on this sensitive issue.
Reminding Bajwa that he had held protests along with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and demanded the sacrilege case be transferred to the CBI in a memorandum to the President, Romana said, "Bajwa however changed colours once the Congress formed the government in the State in 2017". He said Bajwa remained a mute spectator when the Congress government got the sacrilege cases transferred back to the State from the CBI and did not conduct any investigation on the basis of law or facts.
The SAD leader said, just like the AAP government now, the erstwhile Congress government also held special sessions of the Vidhan Sabha with the sole purpose of doing politics on this issue.
Romana said, similarly, AAP legislator Naresh Yadav had been convicted for being responsible for the sacrilege of the holy Koran in Malerkotla. He said instead of showing Yadav the door, AAP had rewarded him with a party ticket in the recent Vidhan Sabha elections.
"The AAP government in Punjab has also done nothing to punish the sacrilege perpetrators and has been busy politicising this issue."
The SAD leader said both the Congress and AAP should focus on the problems of Punjabis and alleviate them.
The holy scriptures referred to in the Bill are Guru Granth Sahib or extracts thereof including Pothis and Gutka Sahib, Bhagavad Gita, Quran and Bible.