Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (HSGMC)

What it is: The Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (HSGMC) is the statutory body created under the Haryana Sikh Gurdwaras (Management) Act, 2014 to run Haryana's gurdwaras, which until then were under the SGPC. The Tribune writes HSGMC and other outlets HSGPC for the same body. Its headquarters are at Kurukshetra (Wikipedia).

How it began: Didar Singh Nalwi began a campaign for a separate Haryana body on 27 December 2000, and a society called the HSGPC was registered in January 2003 with Jagdish Singh Jhinda as president and Nalwi as general secretary (Wikipedia). A committee headed by Haryana's finance minister Harmohinder Singh Chatha recommended a separate body. Randeep Singh Surjewala introduced the bill on the opening day of the monsoon session, 11 July 2014, with INLD and BJP members walking out, and the Assembly passed it (The Peninsula). The Tribune reported that the government held that only the Governor's assent was needed.

The opposition: The Shiromani Akali Dal and the SGPC argued the bill had to go to the Centre, and Punjab's government called it illegal (The Tribune, 10 July 2014). SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar warned Haryana's Sikhs against a Congress plot to divide the community. The Peninsula notes that 72 Haryana gurdwaras under the SGPC gave it over Rs 30 crore. Wikipedia reports that on 16 July 2014 the Akal Takht excommunicated Chatha, Jhinda and Nalwi, and that on 6 August police used water cannon and tear gas on HSGPC members trying to enter a Kurukshetra gurdwara.

Key moments

• 11 July 2014: the Assembly passes the Act.
• 20 September 2022: a Supreme Court bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Vikram Nath dismisses the petitions of SGPC member Harbhajan Singh (filed 2014) and of the SGPC (filed 2019). It holds that no central Act removed the state's power to legislate here, and that the affairs of the Sikh minority in the state are to be managed by Sikhs alone (LiveLaw).
• 19 October 2022: the Court dismisses the SGPC's review petition. On 24 October Haryana notifies a 41-member ad hoc panel for 18 months, and in December it names Mahant Karamjit Singh of the Yamunanagar Sewapanthi sect its head (The Tribune).

Where it stands: In February 2023 the Tribune reported that Haryana Sikhs were preparing to take over about 50 SGPC gurdwaras, eight of them historical shrines under Section 85 of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925. Jhinda and Baljit Singh Daduwal opposed the ad hoc panel. Elections to the committee and the handover of gurdwaras were not found in the sources opened.