Case Title: Harbhajan Singh v. State of Haryana and others
The Supreme Court upheld the Haryana Sikh Gurudwara (Management) Act 2014 and dismissed petitions challenging the Act's constitutionality.
A bench of Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice Vikram Nath handed down the decision in a writ petition filed in 2014 by Harbhajan Singh, a member of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee (SGPC). Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee also filed a writ petition in 2019 to challenge the Act.
The petitions were dismissed, and the Act's validity was upheld, according to Justice Gupta, who read out the operative part.
The petitioner opposed the Haryana law, claiming that the State Legislature lacked the authority to establish a body to oversee Gurudwaras because that authority belonged to Parliament. The Haryana law was challenged because it violated the Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925, the State Reorganisation Act of 1956, the Punjab Reorganisation Act of 1966, and the InterState Corporation Act of 1957.
On March 29, the Court overruled the State of Haryana's preliminary objection to the petitions' maintainability and decided to hear the case on its merits.
The following issues were considered by the Court:
(i) Whether any fundamental rights of the petitioners under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution of India are violated, to entitle the petitioners to invoke the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 32 of the Constitution?
(ii) Whether Section 72 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 and Sections 3 and 4 of the Inter-State Corporation Act, 1957 were transitional provisions to meet the immediate requirement of the issues arising out of the creation of separate States?
(iii) Whether the impugned enactment (Haryana Act) falls within the legislative competence of the Haryana State Legislature, or does it fall under Entry 44 of List I of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution?
The Court determined that neither the 1956 Act, the 1966 Act, nor the 1957 Act deprived the states of their legislative authority to legislate on the topics mentioned in List II of the Seventh Schedule or on matters mentioned in List III of the Seventh Schedule in the manner required.
It concluded that the Haryana Act comes within the legislative authority of the state because the incorporation of a statutory body and unincorporated religious and other societies appears in Entry 32 of List II.