HC sets aside appointment of 4 Nanded gurdwara board members

Aurangabad: The Aurangabad bench of Bombay high court has quashed and set aside a January 20, 2022 notification by the state government that appointed four members on the Nanded Sikh Gurudwara Sachkhand Shri Hazur Apchalnagar Sahib Board that runs the famous Nanded Gurudwara.
The appointments were made against the seats reserved for the Sachkhand Hazur Khalsa Diwan Nanded, commonly referred as the Nanded Diwan — a spiritual guide body registered as a society in Hyderabad.Nanded Gurudwara’s affairs are governed by the Nanded Sikh Gurudwara Sachkhand Shri Hazur Apchalnagar Sahib Act, 1956. The Act was amended in 2015 and section 6 of the Act lays down the composition and the procedure for appointment of the gurdwara board members. The Nanded Diwan is entitled to select 4 members from among its eligible members for appointment to the gurdwara board.
Sardar Manjeet Singh and 16 other trustees from the Sachkhand Hazur Khalsa Diwan Nanded had moved the high court through lawyer Ganesh Gadhe against the impugned (under challenge) state notification, arguing that the appointments were done in contradiction of the Supreme Court (SC) directives.
Earlier, the high court on April 30, 2020, had quashed and set aside a June 21, 2019 notification that had appointed four people on the board. In an appeals process, the Supreme Court too, on August 20, 2020, upheld the high court’s ruling.
On October 27, 2020, Nanded’s assistant charity commissioner (ACC) suo motu registered an application for nomination of four members on the board and out of more than 300 eligible members, allowed only 49 to participate in the meeting to decide the candidates for appointment.
This matter again went up to the SC, which on September 17, 2021, ruled that a meeting should be held in accordance to the directives of the ACC and a nomination is made. The SC left it open to the petitioners to pursue legal remedies. The state government on January 20, 2022, issued a government notification and appointed four persons.
In the latest order, the Aurangabad HC division bench of justice SV Gangapurwala and justice SG Dige observed that the lawyers representing the petitioners and the four appointed members were in agreement that there were more than 300 to 325 valid members as against the 49 allowed by the ACC to participate in the meeting.
“It was expected of the learned Assistant Charity Commissioner to conduct the enquiry and determine the members whose membership is undisputed by any of the party,” the bench said.
The HC said: “In view of the fact that the learned ACC did not prima facie conclude as to number of valid members of Diwan and also the fact that the learned counsel for petitioner and learned Senior Advocate for respondents whose nominations are under challenge are ad-idem (in agreement) that valid members of the Diwan are much more than permitted by the ACC, we are constrained to hold that meeting of Diwan is not conducted as per the directions of the apex court.”
Setting aside the state notification, the HC directed the ACC to “scrupolously follow the directives of the Apex court order dated August 20, 2020 and prepare the list of the persons whose membership is not disputed. The ACC shall also permit those people to participate in the meeting convened for finalizing the nomination. The said exercise shall be made within a period of two months and meeting shall be convened for finalisation of nominations preferably within a period of three months”.