Chandigarh, August 19 — The Punjab Government has moved closer to enacting a law against sacrilege by introducing The Punjab Prevention of Offences Against Holy Scriptures Bill, 2025 in the state Assembly.
Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan has constituted a Select Committee led by MLA Inderbir Singh Nijjar to examine the draft law. The panel has been holding weekly meetings and inviting public input through advertisements published on July 31 and August 14. Officials said several responses have already been received.
On August 12, the committee consulted experts from Punjabi University, Patiala. Among them were Dr. Jaspreet Kaur Sandhu and Dr. Dharamvir Singh (Sikhism), Dr. Gurmeet Singh Sidhu (Religion), Dr. Gurmail Singh, Dr. Jaswinder Singh, and Dr. Tejinder Kaur (Religious Studies).
At its latest sitting, academics from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, shared their perspectives. The panel heard from Prof. Amarjit Singh (Sikh Studies), Dr. Syed Raihan Hasan Rizvi (Urdu-Persian), Prof. Sunil Kumar (Hindi), Prof. Pawan Kumar (Law), Dr. Pintu Emerson (Architecture), and Prof. Satnam Singh Deol (Political Science).
The committee thanked the experts for their inputs and announced that its next meeting on August 26 will include the President of the Bar Association, the Chairman of the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana, and retired High Court judges.
The state government has underlined that the proposed law is intended to protect the sanctity of all religious scriptures and is being shaped through consultations with scholars, citizens, and the legal community.
