Roop Singh

Roop Singh is a former chief secretary of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC). He is a living person, and the sources report no conviction against him. He is one of the people booked in a December 2025 police case over the 328 missing saroops of Sri Guru Granth Sahib, and he says he was made a scapegoat.

Key moments

• August 2020: the Panj Singh Sahiban (the five Sikh high priests, as the press calls them), acting on the Akal Takht panel's report, said that records of 328 saroops, not the 267 the SGPC had counted, had been misappropriated, and told the SGPC to act against the officials responsible.
• 27 August 2020: he resigned as chief secretary "on moral and ethical grounds", and the SGPC executive accepted the resignation at once.
• September 2020: breaking his silence, he told the Tribune that he was a scapegoat and that no chargesheet or confirmation of his resignation had reached him. He said that an office note about 80 saroops damaged in a fire in May 2016 had been written by an assistant supervisor, Kanwaljit Singh, and that he had only forwarded it. He said he was ready to cooperate with any inquiry. The Tribune reported that a report partly made public by the SGPC held him guilty, among 14 other officials and staff, in the embezzlement of 328 saroops. The then SGPC president, Gobind Singh Longowal, said the report named him among those responsible. He added that the executive had withdrawn the move to start criminal proceedings, that guilty officials would be punished by the SGPC itself, and that since Roop Singh had quit he "might enjoy the immunity" of any action.
• 7 December 2025: the Amritsar Police registered a case, on a complaint by Gurlal Singh, against 16 people, and the Tribune's list of those booked begins with Roop Singh. The Tribune's later report lists the charges as Sections 295, 295-A, 409, 465 and 120-B of the IPC, with others, and the Jagat Jot Shri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar Act, 2008.
• 18 April 2026: a magistrate gave default bail to Kanwaljit Singh, whom the Tribune calls the main accused, because no chargesheet had been filed within the time allowed. The sources opened for this entry report no chargesheet against Roop Singh.

He denies being responsible. A report partly made public by the SGPC named him among those accountable, and no court has decided the matter.