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Tohra sets at rest speculation over Sikh personal law demand

Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee president Gurcharan Singh Tohra has denied that the committee's resolution calling for a separate Sikh personal law tantamounts to reviving the earlier Akali demand for excluding the community from the purview of Article 25 of the Constitution.

Tohra said the SGPC has only sought certain amendments in the 'hurriedly legislated' Hindu Marriage Act to incorporate the tenets of 'Sikh rehat maryada'.

Copies of Article 25, which brackets Sikhs with Hindus and Jains, were burnt by Akali leaders, including present Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, in Delhi in 1983.

Dispelling apprehensions about the resolution, Tohra said if the Centre amended the Hindu Marriage and Inheritance Act to serve the purpose of the SGPC resolution, ''we will have no objection to it.''

Asked to comment on the old Akali demand for amendment in Article 25, he said, ''Sikhs are well protected by the Article.''

He said the SGPC also sought amendment in the law pertaining to inheritance of property by women, adding ''we want only daughters-in-law to inherit property, which will not only check the dwindling trend in land holdings but also curb the menace of dowry deaths in the state.''

Akal Takht Jathedar Ranjit Singh has also demanded that only daughters-in-law should be allowed to inherit property.

Tohra said the the farming community across the country was concerned over the current trend of dividing land holdings into smaller units which will certainly prove detrimental to the growth of a viable agriculture-based economy.

One of the major factors behind the rising suicide rate among the farmers was that their smaller land holdings were not economically viable, he added.

UNI

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