Punjab Anti-Sacrilege Bill Referred To Assembly Select Committee For Stakeholder Consultation

Chandigarh: The Punjab assembly on Tuesday unanimously decided to refer the Punjab Prevention of Offences Against Holy Scripture(s) Bill, 2025 to a Select Committee of MLAs for consultation with all the stakeholders before it is enacted.

The decision followed over a three-hour discussion and debate on the Bill on the concluding day of the special session which began on July 10 last; the Bill was tabled in the assembly on Monday.

The assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan said that the Select Committee will gather public opinion on the Bill and return with recommendations within six months.

It may be recalled that the Bill proposes punishment up to life imprisonment and a fine up to Rs 10 lakh fine; it also proposes punishment for abetment of sacrilege – anyone who instigates to commit acts like damaging, defacing or destroying of any holy scripture or its part will face three to five years imprisonment, along with a fine of up to Rs 3 lakh.

The Holy scriptures referred to in the Bill are Guru Granth Sahib or extracts thereof including Pothis, Gukta Sahib, Bhagavad Gita, Quran and Bible.

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ARORA SLAMS SAD, CONG

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), state president and Cabinet minister Aman Arora said that the Punjab government took a historic step to safeguard religious sentiments by bringing the Bill, while lambasting the previous Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Congress governments for their inaction in sacrilege cases - particularly the 2015 Bargari, Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan incidents, which involved the desecration of Sri Guru Granth Sahib.

YET ANOTHER FUTILE EXERCISE: CONG

Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring accused the AAP government 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’’. “If the government was really sincere, it should have acted on the SIT report gathering dust in its corridors”, he suggested.