NEW DELHI—The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhik Committee (SGPC) filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court of India on March 8 seeking a ban on jokes about Sikhs. A similar PIL filed by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) in November 2015 is already under consideration by the Supreme Court. The court asked the DSGMC to submit a dossier with guidelines for inventing a new law to control the jokes being made about Sikhs.
SGPC President Avtar Singh Makkar spoke with Sikh24 confirming the development and saying that the court had fixed March 15 as the date for the hearing.
“We have filed the PIL under the Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925 which gives SGPC the authority to seek such litigations,” he told Sikh24. “We are against such jokes which are made commonly on the internet,” he added.
The Supreme Court had earlier asked the DSGMC to provide guidelines onto how it could impose such bans on ‘Sikh jokes’.
“We are not against free speech, but free speech does not mean that anyone can mock another’s religion. Such jokes often lead to Sikhs facing embarrassment and harassment in schools and other places,” he said.
[…] a petition had been filed with the Supreme Court of India seeking a ban on “Sikh jokes”. In response to the petition, the Supreme Court stated that India is proud of the Sikhs, but did […]