Guilty of sacrilege of any religious book is set to undergo life imprisonment in Punjab. For, the Punjab Vidhan Sabha on Tuesday unanimously passed ‘The Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018’ and ‘The Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018, besides six others.

The two Bills — The Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016’ and ‘The Code of Criminal Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016 — were originally introduced in the Assembly in March 2016 and were awaiting the President’s assent, but were withdrawn by the government on Tuesday.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MlA Aman Arora, participating in the debate on the Bill, called for another amendment ion the bill demanding that trial should be made rime bound and completed within six months—a demand backed by his colleague Sukhpal Khaira.

SAD MlA Gurpratap Singh Wadala said that one should not politicise the issue of religion, and Guru Granth Sahib should not be used for political interest. “We are again trying to politicise religion, which could have adverse repercussions for Punjab. I request the Chief Minister to settle this issue once and for all!” he said.

Saying that SAD supports the Bill, Wadala pointed that punishment for sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib should be severe as it is the most secular and well-accepted religious text. In unison, his party MlA Bikram Singh Majithia demanded that desecration of Guru Granth Sahib should be treated separately as Guru Granth Sahib has been accepted as a “living guru”.

Clarifying the issue, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh cited the Centre’s reply to the previous law enacted by the SAD-BJP government in 2016 for the same which failed to find favour with the Union Home Ministry.

“The Centre had said that it was not possible to consider one religion separately and give separate punishment as India is a secular country and including 295AA for a particular community is not right and “contrary to the Constitution”.

“There is no state religion in India, in fact the state is a religion...and the act is promoting or partial to one religion,” said Capt Amarinder.

Wadala insisted that we as legislators understand the unique case of Guru Granth Sahib, and should consider this before passing the Bill. To this, Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi accused the SAD of having “double face” on the issue.

“They have double face — one in Delhi and another in Punjab. Why they cannot get it passed from their government at the Centre,” he said.

The House also passed ‘The Punjab Police (Second Amendment) Bill, 2018’ on establishing a Police commission to appoint the state police chief.

The Bill bypassed the Supreme Court order on appointment of state Director General of Police (DGP) by passing a Bill that authorises setting up of a State Security Commission for DGP’s appointment and to take up other issues involving the police department.

Only recently, the Supreme Court had asked all the states to send a panel of five eligible Police officers for the post of DGP to the Union Public Service Commission, which will shortlist three and the state will have to chose one of those.

With the passing of the Bill, the current DGP Suresh Arora, who is set to retire on September 30 this year, is not likely to get re-appointment as the new law made it mandatory that the officer, considered for the top post, should have at least one year of service.

The Bill provides ‘the state government shall select the Director General of Police from amongst the Indian Police Service (IPS) from a panel of at least three eligible officers borne on the cadre of Punjab or any state cadre, who are in the rank of Director General or are eligible to hold this rank for appointment as DGP, based on their service record and range of experience, having a reasonable period of remainder service left, which shall in no case be less than twelve months as on the date of appointment”.

AAP MlA Kanwar Sandhu pointed at the said “violation of service rules” by securing two-year tenure of the DGP irrespective of age.

He demanded that the proposed State Police Board should have an opposition party member, or legal luminary, or a public member as the “organisation may help in checking the allegations of politicisation”.

Chief Minister clarified that the Board would have leader of opposition as its member besides eminent citizens of prominence, a retired judge of the High Court, among others.

The House also unanimously passed ‘The Salary and Allowances of leader of Opposition in legislative Assembly (Second Amendment) Bill, 2018’ allowing the leader of Opposition in Vidhan Sabha to use his private car in lieu of government car, which would be returned by him to the government.

Nod to The Punjab State Higher Education Council Bill, 2018, was also givene by the House for setting Higher Education Council to ensure planned and coordinated development of Higher Education in the state.

The Council, to be headed by the Chief Minister, will have the Higher Education Minister as its vice-chairman and Higher Education administrative secretary as the member secretary, besides having on board the Vice-Chancellors of the State Universities, Principals of Government Colleges and eminent persons from the fields of Arts, Science, Technology, Culture, Industry etc who have made substantive and recognizable contribution to their respective fields.