Supreme Court declines plea to declare Guru Gobind Singh Jayanti a national holiday

The court said there are umpteen religious holidays in the country and not one more was needed.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to consider a plea seeking a direction to declare Guru Gobind Singh Jayanti a national holiday.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said, there are umpteen religious holidays in the country and not one more was needed.

The plea was filed by the All India Shiromani Singh Sabha in 2021 seeking a public holiday across India on the birthday of the tenth Sikh guru.

The bench said it was not inclined to entertain the plea, which also sought directions to issue "specific guidelines for declaration of public or gazetted holiday" in the country.

Justice Mehta orally observed that his uncle, a leading lawyer in Rajasthan, used to say, "India is a holy country of holidays. Let us not add to that, please''.

The petitioner’s counsel, however, insisted for a uniform policy for public holidays.

The counsel argued, “We are saying there is no policy. The Union has to respond. Notices have already been issued (on the petition).”

However, the bench was not convinced by this contention and declined to entertain the plea. The bench said it would pass a detailed judgment in the matter.

In its plea filed by the advocate Durga Dutt, the petitioner said it was aggrieved at the fact that the important patriotic and historical figure like tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Govind Singh Ji's birth anniversary has yet not been declared public holiday across the country, though Sikhism is the fifth largest religion in the world with 25.8 million believers.

In India, there is no Public Holidays Act, except the Weekly Holidays Act, 1942, which provided for weekly holidays. In most cases, holidays were declared by the executive at the behest of political groups to appease a particular section of the society. However, in countries like New Zealand, the UK and the USA, the holidays were governed by the legislation, it said.

The petitioner contended that the birth anniversary of the tenth Sikh Guru should be allowed to be celebrated as 'Prakash Parv' throughout the country.

It sought a direction for issuing guidelines for declaring public and gazetted holiday all over the country but not restricted to states and Union Territories where Sikhs are in significant numbers.