Bhai Ranjit Singh

Bhai Ranjit Singh was appointed Jathedar of Sri Akal Takht Sahib in June 1990 while he was a prisoner in Tihar jail, took charge in December 1996, and was suspended on 10 February 1999 in the quarrel between Parkash Singh Badal and Gurcharan Singh Tohra. The Tribune gives the first two dates in its report of 13 February 1999.

ThePrint describes him as a carpenter and a member of the Baba Deep Singh Ranjit Akhara in Delhi who was convicted of the 1980 murder of Baba Gurbachan Singh, head of the Sant Nirankari Mission, a killing it says he carried out after entering the mission as a sewadar. The Tribune links him to the Akhand Kirtani Jatha. Wikipedia says a Delhi sessions court convicted and sentenced him in March 1993, that the Delhi High Court upheld the conviction on 3 October 1997, and that the government then ordered a quick remission of the rest of his sentence to avoid a confrontation. On 7 February 1999 The Tribune reported Chief Minister Badal saying he had himself made efforts to get the sentence commuted, and Maninderjit Singh Bitta, a former Indian Youth Congress president, demanding that the order be rescinded.

Key moments

• June 1990: named Jathedar while in Tihar jail. December 1996: takes charge.
• 31 December 1998 to 9 February 1999: he issues a hukamnama asking the Tohra and Badal factions to stop their infighting until 14 April, and announces a “quami agenda”. The Tribune's news analysis says the agenda centres on the Sikhs being a separate qaum and on a separate Sikh personal law, and quotes him saying he was asking neither for a Sikh homeland nor for Khalistan. A group of SGPC members applied to him to withdraw the hukamnama.
• 6 February 1999: Sikh intellectuals ask him to resign in the larger interests of the Panth.
• 10 February 1999: Giani Puran Singh is made acting Jathedar after placing him under suspension. The Tribune of 29 March 2000 says he was given 30 days to respond, sent no explanation to the SGPC, and was removed, and that Puran Singh became Jathedar in April 1999. The Tribune's explainer of 21 April 2025 says he lost the post in February 1999 for supporting Gurcharan Singh Tohra against Parkash Singh Badal.
• 2 January 2005: speaking at Chowk Mehta, where Baba Harnam Singh was named acting head of the Damdami Taksal, he criticised the Sikh clergy for recognising the breakaway group, saying they were dancing to Badal's tune.

Remembered for: the unusual path to the Akal Takht, from a prison cell in 1990, and the 1999 suspension that came in the Badal-Tohra feud. The Tribune says he was removed for supporting Tohra.