AMRITSAR: Sacking and appointment of jathedars of Takhts on the whims and fancies of respective management committees and boards is not new. Iqbal Singh is not the only jathedar of a Takht, who was rudely shown the door. In the past, chiefs of Akal Takht - including Ranjit Singh, Puran Singh and Joginder Singh Vedanti -- have been removed, putting a question mark on their "revered" position and spiritual authority in the eyes of their respective management committees or boards.

The unceremonious removal of Takht Patna Sahib jathedar Iqbal Singh on Tuesday by the management board has triggered a debate on framing rules for appointment and removal of heads of these temporal bodies.

Ranjit Singh, appointed as jathedar of Akal Takht in 1996, was removed in 1999, following a dispute between the then Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Parkash Singh Badal and the then Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra. Soon, Puran Singh was appointed Akal Takht chief in March 2000. Later, Puran Singh was also sacked by SGPC and Joginder Singh Vedanti was appointed in his place. In 2008, Vedanti also met the same fate as he was asked to put in his papers and head granthi (priest) of the Golden Temple, Gurbachan Singh, was appointed as the head of the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs.

Perturbed over the system by which jathedars were removed by the management committees, Vedanti, in 2000, had directed SGPC to frame rules for their appointment, jurisdiction and removal, to avoid any unsavoury situation.

However, the expression of anger by Iqbal Singh, in presence of Guru Granth Sahib (holy book of Sikhs), after he was removed from the post, was unprecedented, said senior SGPC functionaries. All the three jathedars, who were sacked, had been vocal against the decisions by SGPC to remove them, but they never expressed their feelings in public, they said.

