By IANS
New Delhi : Refusing to intervene in the controversy between the Akal Takht, the highest temporal authority of Sikhism, and the Dera Sacha Sauda sect, the Supreme Court Monday rejected a petition seeking steps to protect the sect's Deras and its followers.
A vacation bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and D.K. Jain told Dera counsel V.K. Ohri that it would not interfere in the matter since the Punjab and Haryana High Court was already monitoring the situation.
The bench asked counsel to approach appropriate authorities for redressal of the grievance. Since it was not inclined to entertain the petition, counsel sought its withdrawal. The bench dismissed the petition as withdrawn.
The petition filed by Abhijit Bhagat, a trustee and vice-chairman of the Dera headquartered in Sirsa in Haryana, Gurdas Singh of Rajasthan and Ombir Singh of Meerut had prayed for a direction to various states to protect the life, liberty and property of the Dera and its followers.
It said that the Dera and its followers had received threats that their properties would be annihilated unless the sect voluntarily stopped all its activities by May 27.
The petitioners said that the inaction of the state governments in not protecting the Dera followers despite such open threats being issued repeatedly was in violation of their right to life as envisaged under Article 21 of the constitution.
The bench also dismissed as withdrawn a writ petition filed by Harvinder Kaur seeking similar relief.
Tension between sections of the Sikhs and Dera followers erupted last month after Dera chief Gurmit Ram Rahim was photographed in the garb of 10th Sikh guru Gobind Singh.
After violence across the state, the Akal Takht had on May 20 served an ultimatum to the Punjab government to close down all the Deras in the state by May 27.