Indian Supreme Court Asks States to Frame Rules for Anand Marriage Act

The Supreme Court of India (SC) has asked 17 Indian states and 8 Union Territories to frame rules for the registration of Anand Karaj (Blissful Union, Sikh marriage ceremony) within four months. Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta observed that 'in a secular republic, the State must not turn a citizen's faith into either a privilege or a handicap.' In 2012, the government of India passed the Anand Marriage Act as an amendment to the original Anand Marriage Act, 1909 introduced by Tikka Ripudaman Singh of the Nabha princely state to the Imperial Legislative Council in British India. The 2012 Act met a long-standing demand of the Sikhs but Section 6 of the Act cast the duty on respective state governments to make rules to facilitate registration of such marriages, maintain a marriage register, and provide certified extracts. In the last 13 years, many states have failed to do that. In 2022, Amanjot Singh Chaddha, a Nainital-based advocate, filed a petition addressing this lacuna. As of now, in many Indian states and UTs, Sikh marriages are registered under the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA), 1955. Once the Anand Marriage Act is implemented all over India, couples who have registered their marriages under the Act will not have to register their marriages under any other law. The SCI’s order should help Sikhs—especially in the diaspora, who are often at pains to explain why while they identify as Sikh, their marriage is under HMA. However, while the Act provides a framework for registration, it does not include provisions for divorce or other matrimonial disputes. As a result, Sikhs seeking divorce must turn to the HMA to dissolve their marriage. The core issue is Article 25 of the Indian Constitution which does not consider Sikhs to be an independent religion and places them in the larger Hindu fold along with Jains and Buddhists. This lack of clarity on Sikh identity does not allow the community to have their own personal laws. Unless Sikhs can frame their own personal laws and given the gaps in this law, the SCI orders are important, yet mostly cosmetic (earlier coverage).

Quoting security reasons, the Panjab Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Sunil Jakhar justified the Indian union government’s decision to ban Sikhs from visiting Nankana Sahib—the birthplace of first Sikh sovereign Guru Nanak in Pakistan. The Kendri (central) Sri Guru Singh Sabha (organization) hit out at the decision saying this was a direct intrusion into the affairs of the minority community. The Panjab opposition Indian National Congress (INC) chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring urged the Prime Minister Narendera Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to allow Sikhs to travel. Leader of Opposition, Partap Singh Bajwa wrote to the government, ‘with deep anguish and concern regarding the Center's decision to disallow Sikh pilgrims from visiting Nankana Sahib.’ Bajwa expressed disappointment that the ‘age-old traditions, faith, and spiritual practices of millions of Sikhs are repeatedly sacrificed in the name of hostility between two governments.’ Mahesh Singh, vice president of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee also asked the Indian government to reconsider its ban. Meanwhile, the Sikhs leaders in BJP enacted a sideshow. Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri submitted recommendations to the PM for safekeeping of the revered Sikh relic Jore Sahib—footwear attributed to the tenth Sikh sovereign Guru Gobind Singh and Mata Sahib Kaur. Puri's claim is, the sacred artefacts have been preserved and safeguarded by his family for generations. The relic comprises two footwear items, one belonging to Guru Gobind Singh (right foot) and the other to Mata Sahib Kaur (left foot). Puri did not speak on Nanakana Sahib. Concurrently, In Jammu, on 17 Sep, Senior Superintendent of Police (Traffic) beat a Sikh truck driver and pulled off his turban near the Ring Road toll plaza. The incident sparked anger among Sikh community and transport associations. Senior INC leader Taranjit Singh Tony led a protest in Miran Sahib with the support of local Sikh organizations, Tony said, 'This is not just a case of misbehavior. It is an act of disrespect to the Sikh identity' (earlier coverage).

Amid a forecast of light to moderate rains over parts of northwestern India over the coming few days, the southwest monsoon commenced retreat from Panjab and Haryana on 16 Sep. However, on that day the water level in Pong Dam over river Beas was 1,393.50 feet, 3.5 feet above the maximum permissible level. The level at Bhakra Dam on river Satluj was 1,676.14 feet, 4 feet below the maximum permissible limit. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has deputed 25 Union ministers of state (MoS) to visit the flood-affected districts of Panjab between 11-20 Sep. Some BJP-led state governments, including in Haryana, Delhi, Gujarat, Goa, and Uttar Pradesh, have extended nominal financial or relief aid to Panjab as a gesture of solidarity with the flood victims. On 18 Sep, after union ministers Jitendra Singh and Jitin Prasada visited flood-hit areas in Pathankot and Gurdaspur, the Indian union government approved a proposal by the Panjab government to declare the state 'severely flooded'. Panjab is now expecting a higher allocation of funds and will also be able to get a 50-year soft loan of USD 67M, under the Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment scheme. During the floods, Shiromani Akali Dal’s (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal distributed cash and diesel. SAD rebel leaders said the cash belongs to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) from the offering of the devotees to Gurdwaras. The SGPC denied the allegations and has published fund records to ensure transparency. However, on the basis of a Kendri (central) Sri Guru Singh Sabha (organization) report from 2020, the parallel SAD headed by Giani Harpreet Singh accused Badal to have amassed money from marketing Gurbani (Hymns) relayed from Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple). Meanwhile, Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Manohar Lal Khattar said on 19 Sep that the water saved by India placing the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan in abeyance will be made available to Delhi, Haryana, and Rajasthan within the next 1.5 years. It seems the politicians have learnt no lessons from the 2025 floods (earlier coverage).

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On 29 Aug, three days after 1,411K cusecs of water in river Ravi broke flood gates at the Madhopur headworks, Panjab Minister for Water Resources Barinder Goyal issued a show-cause notice to the firm Level9 Biz Private Limited which had been contracted for the upkeep of the structure. The company has now refuted the government’s charges, saying that 'assessing the health of the barrage’s structure was never its scope of work.' The Panjab government has also suspended the three officials under whose watch the flood gates did not open but broke down. Meanwhile, struggling with the challenge of cultivating their fields across the barbed fence along the India-Pakistan border, farmers in Amritsar’s Kakkar and Rania villages have now suffered another blow as the swollen Ravi has swallowed around 50 acres of their fertile farmland. All over the flood affected fields the huge deposits of sand is going to cause problems with once again demarcating the fields. Though there are orders from the Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann for farmers to sell the sand, on ground the mining mafia, local officials, and Panjab police are preventing the farmers from clearing the fields. The farmers need not only need clear instructions but also the state's help with Joseph Cyril Bamford Excavators Ltd. , tractor-trailers, and designated dumping sites to clear fields. On 22 Sep, the Punjab and Haryana High Court allowed the Panjab government to proceed with finalizing the tenders for desilting work. Concurrently, 373 cattle have gone missing. With no carcasses found, it is now presumed that the animals were swept away by the gushing waters of river Ravi towards Pakistan. Officials in the state Animal Husbandry Department have said that of the 360K livestock affected by the floods, 534 cattle, besides thousands of poultry birds, goats, foals, and horses have died. Similarly, during the floods, there were 129 cases of snakebite in Gurdaspur district and 200 cases all over flood affected areas of Panjab in the first week of September. In parallel, due to floods in river Yamuna and Ghaggar, over 300K acres of crops have been destroyed in neighboring Haryana (earlier coverage).

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On 17 Sep, Panjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann launched Mission Chardi Kala (ascending spirit)—a global fundraising campaign to raise funds for the state government’s rehabilitation efforts for 2025 Panjab flood victims. At the same time, the Panjab Registrar of Cooperative Societies Girish Dayalan has also issued notices to cooperative housing societies which have not remitted statutory dues to respective urban development authorities and set a 21-day deadline for them to clear outstanding amounts. The government has also zeroed in on five properties including a Public Works Department rest house, a printing press, a veterinary hospital, and a sugar mill spread over 111 acres to be auctioned under the Optimum Use of Vacant Government Land scheme. The Indian National Congress Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa criticized the Aam Aadmi Party-led Panjab government, accusing it of orchestrating a systematic sell-off of Panjab's assets to mask its catastrophic financial mismanagement. After withdrawing the controversial Land Pooling Policy, the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) will acquire land for Eco City 3 in New Chandigarh, 300 acres in Mullanpur, and 3.4K acres for the Aerotropolis extension project under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. Meanwhile, after proclaiming that it will not delete beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act, the Panjab government has now adopted the Indian union government's criteria to exclude individual members of families from the scheme. As per the new criteria, as many as 1.1M beneficiaries stand to lose receiving free ration as the state government has issued a notification, listing the criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of beneficiaries. It states that all income taxpayers—those who pay the Goods and Service Tax, service and professional taxes, or own a motorised four-wheeler or air conditioners—will be excluded from the list of those receiving free food grains. The notification issued on 19 Sep is an amendment to the Punjab Food Security Rules, 2016 (earlier coverage).

As Panjab enters its peak paddy procurement and vegetable sowing season after the devastating floods, the increasing hostility towards migrant workers primarily from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, has triggered an alarm among the farmers and industrialists. The situation escalated after the alleged kidnapping, sodomy, and murder of a five-year-old boy by a migrant worker in Hoshiarpur. As the calls for expulsion of migrants grow louder, concern is mounting among the labor, the industry, and the agrarian sector. President of the Uttar Pradesh Kalyan Parishad (welfare forum) Rambhawan Goswami said there was a palpable fear among the migrant workers. 'Some of them, especially those who live in rented accommodations, returned fearing backlash. A few are preparing to leave and others are living in fear.' Local residents allege appropriation of resources and livelihoods by migrants. The protests saw the emergence of slogans such as Parvasi Bhajao, Panjab Bachao (send back the migrants, save Panjab). A farmer leader Rattan Singh Randhawa said migrant laborers are the backbone of Panjab's agriculture and industrial sectors. Over 1.3M migrants work in Panjab's grain markets.' Badish Jindal, Ludhiana-based industrialist and president of the World Micro, Small Medium Enterprise Forum, said that over 1.8M migrant workers form the '80% of unskilled laborers in Panjab’s industries are migrants.' Jindal cautioned that if migrant workers are forced out of the state, industries and businesses will come to a standstill, and Panjab’s relations with other states and even exports from ports in other states could be adversely affected. He said, 'This is a conspiracy to destroy Panjab.' Industry leaders have urged Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann to intervene amid rising tensions between local residents and migrant workers. On 16 Sep, Mann said there cannot be any discrimination against migrants within India as Panjabis too run their businesses in other states. He said, ‘Panjabis have businesses in Raipur and most transporters in Kolkata are from Panjab. Tomorrow those places can send the Panjabis out.' Panjab urgently needs to dialogue the issue lest it gets out of hand, bring in policies on migration, and not give migrants voting rights (earlier coverage).

Rewards totaling up to GBP 30K have been offered by an independent UK charity Crimestoppers and the Sikh Federation UK for information leading to the conviction of those responsible for the 'racially-motivated' rape of a Sikh woman in the West Midlands on 9 Sep. Alan Edwards, West Midlands regional manager at Crimestoppers said, 'We believe someone out there knows something and we want to encourage them to come forward anonymously. The reward is offered to prompt anyone with information to speak up. No matter how small the detail.' In a statement released through the Sikh Federation, the sufferer expressed her gratitude to the Sikh community. 'I want to sincerely thank everyone for supporting me and my family during this very difficult time.' On 14 Sep, West Midlands police said a man in his 30s had been detained as part of inquiries into the assault. Anti-racism organizations representing UK’s South Asian communities have demanded justice and raised the incident in the UK Parliament as an ‘absolutely appalling’ crime. Meanwhile,the US President Donald Trump issued a new presidential proclamation that introduces a major overhaul to the H-1B visa programme, imposing a steep USD 100K fee on H-1B visa applications, raising fresh questions about whether this is a much-needed correction or a potentially crippling blow to America's technology talent pipeline. The new fee takes effect from 21 Sep. A senior US administration official later said the fee applies only to new applicants and not to existing H-1B visa holders. About 70% of H1-B applicants are from India and blocking the exodus will affect the Indian IT industry which is already facing more supply than available jobs. The Indian government expressed serious concern over the raise in H-1B visa fee, calling it a potential disruption for skilled Indian professionals. Most Panjabi-Sikh migrants who aim to be truck drivers in the US need the H2-B visa and not the H1-B. They are not affected by this change but their US visa process is frozen over the Florida turnpike accident (earlier coverage).

On 17 Sep, seven days after the clash inside Patiala Central Jail—in which Sandeep Singh alias Sunny assaulted three policemen convicted for extrajudicial killings and drugs—Sandeep was transferred to Sangrur Jail. In this period, according to Sandeep's brother, Patiala jail authorities tied him up and beat his legs with sticks, leaving bruises, swelling on his face, and injury near his eye. After the assault on Sandeep, a medical examination was conducted only eight days after the incident despite court orders; the wounds remained untreated. The medical report has recorded 11 grave injuries. Sandeep’s lawyers Ghuman Brothers said Sandeep was not even allowed to meet lawyers or family until 15 Sep and said his assault by police was torture. Meanwhile, one of the policemen assaulted by Sandeep, former inspector Suba Singh who was on a ventilator in Government Rajindra Hospital has died. Suba’s family had already disowned him and no Sikh granthi (reciter) performed his funeral services. The case has once again brought into relief the years of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killing in Panjab between 1978-1995. Many are asking why were hardened criminals like Deputy Superintendent Police and Inspector Inderjeet Singh, the others assaulted along with Suba Singh, mixed with Sandeep who was an undertrial in the murder of Shiv Sena leader Sudhir Suri. The jail authorities are also responsible because jail inmates must be segregated and Sandeep had earlier complained about slandering by the policemen. Meanwhile, violence erupted for the second time in three days at the Muktsar district jail, leaving five inmates and two jail employees injured. The first clash, stemming from an old rivalry, occurred on 18 Sep. The second attack took place on 20 Sep, when one faction allegedly assaulted jail employee Mangal Dass Singh. A group led by Gurmeet Singh alias Meeta, and Baljinder Singh alias Gandhi, snatched keys from a jail employee, freed other inmates, locked the employee inside and attacked rival inmates in the de-addiction barrack using iron rods and a sharp weapon (earlier coverage).

On 17 Sep, the Supreme Court of India (SCI) said, the Panjab government must arrest farmers who resort to stubble burning to curb severe pollution levels in Delhi and the National Capital Region during the winter months. This is odd because over the last decade subject matter experts have refuted the role of Panjab’s stubble burning in causing Delhi’s pollution. In July 2024, National Green Tribunal member Sudhir Aggarwal categorically said ‘there is no scientific study directly linking Panjab farm fires to Delhi’s pollution.’ In November 2024, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said installing flue-gas desulfurization technology in 12 coal-based thermal power plants within a 300-km radius of Delhi could reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 67%. In March 2025, Union Minister Piyush Goyal dismissed claims that Panjab farmers are responsible for Delhi’s pollution, calling it ‘ridiculous’ to suggest stubble burning travels 500 km through high-rises and lands solely in the capital. The Punjab Pollution Control Board said on 19 Sep that the state government has flagged 663 villages as hotspots of stubble burning. The state has constituted a team of 8K people who have been deputed in 11,624 villages. The state government has sanctioned 15,613 Crop Residue Management machines for farmers this season. Since 18 Sep, the state police has registered 12 First Information Reports against farmers for stubble burning. Meanwhile, as flood-hit Panjab’s paddy crop enters its final ripening stage, farmers are struggling with two major threats—false smut and Southern Rice Black-Streaked Dwarf Virus. The virus has affected paddy crops in 11K acres in Patiala and Fatehgarh Sahib districts. Concurrently, nearly 6K bales of unginned cotton from the first picking of this season have arrived in various cotton mandis across north India. According to Sushil Mittal, president of the Haryana Ginners Association and owner of Aditya Agro in Sirsa, rates are hovering between USD 61-79 per quintal, while the Minimum Support Price in northern states is USD 88 (earlier coverage).

Around 200K Yadavs live across Panjab, with the majority of them concentrated in nearly 30 villages across Patiala and Sangrur districts. Turban-wearing with flowing beards, Panjabi names, and the customary 'Singh' added to their names, they embody the principle of assimilation. 'Only our surname indicates that we are Yadavs. Otherwise our forefathers who got settled here adapted to local culture,' said Jarnail Singh Yadav from Patiala’s Dugal Kalan village. Mishra Singh Yadav from Nihalgarh village. His forefathers settled in Panjab after the 1857 Mutiny against the British, and eventually, they were raised as Sikhs. 'Around 700 out of approximately 1K voters of my village are Yadavs. We are followers of Lord Krishna, but we go to Gurdwaras, follow the teachings of Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh scripture).' Secretary general of Punjab Yadav Mahasabha (grand gathering) Vijay Yadav said, 'Once the 1857 revolt backfired in many parts of the country, many Yadavs came to this pocket and started living here, and eventually a few of them followed Sikhi.' While they call themselves the ‘Yadavs of Panjab’, beneath this pride lies a long-standing struggle. In Panjab, the Yadav community was placed under the Backward Classes (BC) category in 2016 by the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government. However, they are not placed in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category defined by the Indian union government. 'This means that Yadavs in Panjab are entitled to reservation benefits only at the state level—for state government jobs, admissions, and schemes. But they cannot avail the benefits of the union government’s OBC quota,' explains Jarnail. Yadavs are recognized as OBC in other Indian states. As a result, they are eligible for the 27% OBC reservation in union government jobs and institutions, in addition to state benefits. Vijay adds, 'Mostly, the ones living in Sangrur and Patiala villages are farmers, and many of them are efficient in using combines, harvesters. They take them to other states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh for harvesting operations to earn money.'