Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann speaks in the course of the Punjab Legislative Meeting’s price range session, in Chandigarh. Photograph Credit score: ANI
The story up to now:
On April 13, the Punjab Meeting unanimously handed the ‘Jaagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar (Modification) Invoice, 2026’, aimed toward harsher punishment for sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib, together with life imprisonment. It proposes to amend the 2008 regulation enacted below the Shiromani Akali Dal–Bharatiya Janata Get together authorities. A sequence of so-called sacrilege incidents lately prompted successive governments to pursue laws. In 2016, the SAD-BJP authorities handed two modification payments — The Indian Penal Code (Punjab Modification) Invoice, 2016, and The Code of Prison Process (Punjab Modification) Invoice, 2016 — prescribing life imprisonment for desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib, however the Heart returned them, asserting that every one religions have to be handled equally below India’s secular framework. In 2018, the Congress authorities once more launched two modification payments, however they didn’t obtain Presidential assent. Final 12 months, the Aam Aadmi Get together authorities tabled the Punjab Prevention of Offenses in opposition to Holy Scriptures Invoice, which was subsequently despatched to a choose committee for evaluate.
Printed – April 19, 2026 03:30 am IST