Amritsar – Strange but true – Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhik Committee (SGPC) has sought an amount of 3500INR from an applicant for replying to a Right to Information (RTI) query seeking details of last 5 years expenditure, audit report, and information inregards to school or hospital run by SGPC in Ludhiana.
Here is a copy of the reply from SGPC office in Amritsar, which is supplied to SinghStation by Adv Anand.
Adv. Kamaljit Singh Anand from Ludhiana filed the application under RTI on 24th April and requested SGPC to furnish copies of information as stated above. The application was replied back on 30th April suggesting Adv Anand to deposit Rs 3500 towards the costing of documents in supplying the requested information.
It is pertinent to mention here that in the past, this vital financial information used to publish annually on regular basis in Akali Patrika, however since the publication is no longer happening, so these budget figures are not longer available to the public anymore.
It is also important to mention that, the SGPC was a creation of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925, marking the culmination of the struggle of the Sikh people to wrest control of their places of worship from mahants or priests. “The objective of the legislation was to provide for better administration of certain Sikh gurdwaras. The Act provides for an elected democratic regime to manage the affairs of gurdwaras. Transparency and openness are, therefore, in consonance with the democratic character of the SGPC