Harbhajan Singh vs State of Haryana & Ors.
Background
The petitioner, a resident of Haryana and elected SGPC representative, challenged the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara (Management) Act, 2014, which created a separate statutory body to manage historical Gurdwaras in Haryana, carving this function out from the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) which had managed these Gurdwaras under the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925. A connected writ petition was filed by the SGPC itself on similar grounds. The core challenge was that Haryana's legislature lacked competence to enact the law because the SGPC, after Punjab's 1966 reorganisation, had become an inter-State body governable only by Parliament, and alternatively that the Act violated the Sikh community's fundamental rights to manage its own religious affairs under Articles 25 and 26. A connected appeal challenged the rescission of an appointment as Additional Commissioner for Gurdwara Elections under the same Act.
Decision Breakdown
The Court held that Sections 3 and 4 of the Inter-State Corporations Act, 1957 and Section 72 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 were only transitional provisions and did not strip the Haryana legislature of its ordinary power to legislate on subjects within List II (State List) or List III (Concurrent List) of the Constitution. It held the Haryana Act properly fell under Entry 32 of List II (incorporation of religious/other societies) and, even if it also touched Entry 28 of List III (religious endowments/institutions), it did not require the President's assent since it did not conflict with any existing central law. The Act's provision for a community-elected management committee mirrored the structure of the 1925 Act and did not violate Articles 25 and 26, since Sikh religious affairs remained in Sikh hands. The Court held the writ petitions maintainable (given the long 8-year pendency and interim orders) but dismissed them on merits, upholding the Haryana Act's validity; it also dismissed the connected appeal on the Additional Commissioner's rescinded appointment as having become infructuous since his five-year term had already expired.
Lesson Learnt
A State legislature does not lose its constitutional competence to legislate on a subject within the State or Concurrent Lists merely because an existing body governing that subject became an inter-State entity through post-independence State reorganisation; and a religious community's own elected management structure for its institutions, mirroring an existing valid scheme, does not by itself violate the fundamental right to manage religious affairs under Articles 25-26.