Punjab’s decade-long journey towards a formal sacrilege law

Why in the News

Punjab brought a stringent sacrilege law into force in April 2026 by amending an existing State statute on the ceremonial custody of the Guru Granth Sahib, avoiding the Presidential assent that had defeated three earlier attempts. The route exposes a conflict between a State's determination to legislate on religious sentiment and the constitutional limits set by secularism, equality, proportionality and the division of legislative competence. A challenge to the Act is pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

What does Punjab's 2026 sacrilege law do?

1. What it penalises: It punishes sacrilege committed against the Guru Granth Sahib, and covers no other religious scripture.
2. The sentence it carries: Its most serious provisions carry a mandatory minimum sentence extending to life imprisonment, leaving no room for a judge to calibrate punishment to the facts of a case.
3. The statute it amends: It amends a pre existing State law concerned specifically with the ceremonial custody of the Guru Granth Sahib, rather than the central penal code.
4. How it was brought into force: Because the State argued the amendment falls within its own legislative competence, it claimed no Presidential assent was needed, and the Governor's signature brought it into force in April 2026.

What is the current status of sacrilege law in India?

1. The central provision: Insulting religion or religious beliefs with deliberate and malicious intent is an offence under Section 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the successor to Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
2. The settled constitutional position: Section 295A was upheld in Ramji Lal Modi, and the Supreme Court has not revisited that ruling in almost sixty years.
3. The intent requirement on paper: Conviction requires proof of deliberate and malicious intent, a threshold the court reads into the provision.
4. Where the practical harm falls: Indian criminal procedure allows a First Information Report to be lodged and an accused arrested well before any court examines whether that intent was present, so the chilling effect operates at the point of complaint, not at the point of conviction.
5. No standalone national sacrilege statute: There is no separate central law on sacrilege beyond the religious offence provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which is why Punjab has repeatedly attempted a State law.

Constitutional Provisions Related to Sacrilege, Speech and Secularism

1. Article 14: Guarantees equality before the law, and permits classification only where an intelligible differentia bears a rational nexus to the law's stated purpose.
2. Article 19(1)(a): Guarantees freedom of speech and expression to all citizens.
3. Article 19(2): Permits reasonable restrictions on that freedom in the interests of public order, decency or morality, among other grounds.
4. Article 21: Guarantees life and personal liberty, which the Supreme Court has read as requiring a just, fair and reasonable procedure.
5. Article 25: Guarantees freedom of conscience and the free profession, practice and propagation of religion, subject to public order, morality and health, and permits the State to legislate for social welfare and reform even where this cuts against religious custom.
6. Entry 1, Concurrent List, Seventh Schedule: Places criminal law within the legislative competence of both Parliament and the State legislatures.
7. Article 254: Provides that a State law repugnant to a central enactment on the same Concurrent List subject is void to that extent.
8. Article 254(2): Saves such a State law only where it has been reserved for and has received the assent of the President.

How did Punjab arrive at this law across a decade?

1. 2016, the first attempt: The then Akali Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party government passed a bill imposing life imprisonment for sacrilege committed specifically against the Guru Granth Sahib. The Centre returned it, objecting that a law protecting only one religion's scripture could not sit easily with India's secular Constitution.
2. 2018, the second attempt: The succeeding Congress government extended the same life sentence to the Guru Granth Sahib, the Bhagavad Gita, the Quran and the Bible, through a new Section 295AA of the penal code. That Bill was also returned without Presidential assent.
3. July 2025, the third attempt: The Aam Aadmi Party government introduced the Punjab Prevention of Offences Against Holy Scripture(s) Bill, again covering all four texts, with sentences ranging from ten years to life. It was sent to a select committee and has since been effectively shelved.
4. April 2026, the successful route: The State abandoned the amendment of the central penal code and instead amended an existing State statute on the ceremonial custody of the Guru Granth Sahib, bringing the law into force on the Governor's signature alone.
5. The pattern the sequence shows: A State legislature has persistently tried, by one route or another, to entrench a sacrilege code of ever increasing severity, undeterred by repeated constitutional rebuffs.

Why does a religion specific penal law run into the equality guarantee?

1. The classification test it must pass: A provision drawing a line between one community's sacred text and every other's needs an intelligible differentia bearing a rational nexus to its stated purpose, the test the Supreme Court set out in State of West Bengal versus Anwar Ali Sarkar.
2. Why the classification fails on its own terms: The Act's stated purpose is communal harmony, framed in terms of all communities, and singling out one faith's scripture does not serve a purpose framed in terms of all of them.
3. The objection is not new: By protecting only the Guru Granth Sahib, the 2026 Act revives precisely the objection that sank the 2016 attempt.
4. The pending litigation: In May 2026, the Anglican Church of India, through its Amritsar bishop, petitioned the Punjab and Haryana High Court arguing that the Act creates a religion specific penal regime violating equality before law, and sought both the quashing of the Act and a stay on its implementation.
5. The standing wrinkle: The Bench reportedly questioned how a church whose own scripture the Act does not touch could claim to be aggrieved by it, a question that demonstrates the very defect alleged, since a law can discriminate in structure while leaving those it excludes without the conventional standing to challenge it. The petition remains pending.

Why does the mandatory life sentence raise a proportionality problem?

1. What the Act does: Its most serious provisions carry a mandatory minimum sentence extending to life imprisonment, removing all sentencing discretion from the trial judge.
2. The controlling precedent: In Mithu versus State of Punjab, the Supreme Court struck down a different mandatory sentencing provision precisely because it stripped courts of discretion.
3. The standard applied: Mithu applied the requirement of a just, fair and reasonable procedure that Maneka Gandhi versus Union of India had read into Article 21.
4. The parallel is close: The earlier case also arose out of Punjab, which makes the comparison with the 2026 Act direct rather than analogical.
5. Why proportionality matters here: Sacrilege covers conduct ranging from a deliberate desecration to an inadvertent act, and a single fixed maximum sentence prevents a court from distinguishing between them.

Does the State have the legislative competence to enact this law?

1. Where the subject sits: Criminal law sits on the Concurrent List, so both Parliament and the State legislature may legislate on it.
2. The repugnancy rule: Article 254 makes a State law repugnant to a central enactment on the same subject void to that extent, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 carries its own provisions on sacrilege and on outraging religious feeling.
3. The only saving route: Article 254(2) saves such a State law only where it has received Presidential assent, which is the requirement that defeated the 2016 and 2018 Bills.
4. How Punjab avoided it: The State amended a pre existing, ostensibly ceremonial statute rather than the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita directly, and argued that no assent was therefore needed.
5. The challenge to that route: A petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court argues that a life sentence is a matter of criminal law and cannot dodge central scrutiny merely by changing which statute book it sits in.

Why does the free speech objection survive despite Ramji Lal Modi?

1. The vagueness of the operative terms: Section 295A and its successor in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 rest on terms such as outrage, insult and religious feelings, policed after the fact by whichever officer receives the complaint.
2. The precedent that should apply: In Shreya Singhal versus Union of India in 2015, the court struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 in its entirety, holding that criminalising online messages using undefined terms such as offensive and menacing left the provision impermissibly vague, invited arbitrary enforcement and chilled protected speech in violation of Article 19(1)(a).
3. The terms are no more precise: The words on which the religious offence provisions rest are as undefined as the words the court found fatal in Shreya Singhal.
4. What the court has not done: It has never brought the Shreya Singhal reasoning to bear on Section 295A, whose constitutionality it settled in Ramji Lal Modi almost sixty years earlier and has not revisited since.
5. The reason for the gap: The inconsistency reads as reluctance rather than principle, since it is easier to strike down a recent statute governing an unfamiliar medium than to unsettle an eighty year old precedent with a long and emotionally fraught history behind it.
6. What the vagueness enables: A cartoon, a novel, a documentary or a stray remark on social media can all be made to fit the language of insult without any accompanying threat of actual disorder.

Major debates surrounding sacrilege law

1. Secularism as an unamendable limit: Secularism was declared part of the Constitution's unamendable basic structure in S.R. Bommai versus Union of India, precisely so that the State could neither favour a religion nor punish disrespect towards one, and a sacrilege law does the second.
2. Religious freedom against religious reform: Article 25 protects the practice of religion and at the same time preserves the space for social reformers, sceptics and atheists to challenge religious practice, since the right is subject to public order, morality and health and the State may legislate for reform.
3. Public order as a threshold or a label: One position requires an actual threat of disorder before speech may be punished, the other treats the giving of offence as itself a disturbance of public order.
4. Ramji Lal Modi against Shreya Singhal: Two lines of authority now sit in tension, one upholding a vague religious offence provision and the other striking down a vague online speech provision on the same reasoning.
5. Federal competence against local sentiment: A State legislature responding to local religious sentiment collides with a national criminal code and the Article 254 assent requirement designed to keep criminal law uniform.
6. Deterrence against chilling effect: Severe sentences are defended as deterrence against desecration, and are opposed on the ground that the harm is inflicted at the stage of arrest, long before any court weighs intent.

Challenges to enforcing a sacrilege law

1. Undefined operative terms: Insult and outrage are not statutorily defined, so the same conduct produces prosecution in one district and none in another. e.g. Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 was struck down in Shreya Singhal in 2015 for exactly this defect.
2. Arrest precedes adjudication of intent: A First Information Report can be registered and an accused arrested before any court tests the deliberate and malicious intent the offence requires. e.g. the 2026 Punjab Act's life sentence attaches to a charge that a magistrate never has to evaluate before custody begins.
3. Selective protection invites litigation: Protecting one scripture and not others invites an equality challenge that can stall the law for years. e.g. the Anglican Church of India's May 2026 petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, still pending.
4. No sentencing discretion: A mandatory minimum forces the same punishment on a deliberate desecration and an inadvertent act. e.g. Mithu versus State of Punjab struck down a mandatory sentencing provision for removing exactly this discretion.
5. Repugnancy risk to the whole statute: A State criminal law that overlaps a central enactment is void to the extent of repugnancy unless it carries Presidential assent, so the entire Act can fall on a procedural ground. e.g. the 2016 and 2018 Punjab Bills were both returned without assent.
6. Incentive for mob complaint: A severe penalty attached to a subjective standard makes the police complaint itself a weapon against critics, writers and artists. e.g. the returned 2018 Bill would have extended a life sentence to insult of four separate scriptures, multiplying the categories of complainant.
7. Standing gap for excluded groups: A community whose scripture the law does not cover may be told it is not aggrieved, so the discrimination cannot be tested. e.g. the Punjab and Haryana High Court's question to the Amritsar bishop in the pending petition.

Conclusion

Punjab's 2026 Act carries three distinct constitutional infirmities at once: an equality defect under the Anwar Ali Sarkar test, a proportionality defect under Mithu, and a legislative competence defect under Article 254. Each of these is separate from the broader secularism objection that a State may neither favour a religion nor punish disrespect towards one. The petitions challenging the Act remain pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, and the next milestone is that court's decision on the quashing and stay applications.

What is Secularism as a Constitutional Doctrine?

1. About: Indian secularism requires the State to maintain equal distance from all religions, neither establishing nor favouring one, while retaining the power to regulate the secular aspects of religious practice.
2. Rationale: It exists to secure equal citizenship in a society of multiple faiths, so that a citizen's legal standing does not vary with religious affiliation.
3. Its constitutional status: It was declared part of the Constitution's unamendable basic structure in S.R. Bommai versus Union of India, and was written into the Preamble by the Forty second Amendment in 1976.
4. Its distinguishing feature: Unlike a strict wall of separation, the Indian model allows positive State intervention in religion for social welfare and reform, which Article 25(2) expressly authorises.
5. Where it is enforced: Articles 25 to 28 supply the operative provisions, and Article 15 and Article 16 bar religious discrimination by the State.

Key Concerns Regarding Constitutional Secularism

1. State regulation shading into State preference: The power to reform religious practice can be exercised unevenly across communities, converting regulation into favour.
2. Religious offence provisions in a secular code: Criminal provisions protecting religious feelings require the State to adjudicate what counts as an insult to faith, a task secularism was meant to keep it out of.
3. Uneven codification of personal law: Some communities' family law is codified and reviewable while others' is not, producing different legal protection for identically placed citizens.
4. The essential religious practices test: Courts must decide what is essential to a religion before they may regulate it, drawing judges into theological determination.
5. Local majoritarian legislation: State legislatures respond to locally dominant religious sentiment, so a nationally uniform standard fragments at the State level.
6. Enforcement discretion at the police station: Where the offence turns on a subjective standard, the identity of the complainant rather than the conduct determines whether the law is invoked.

Laws and Rules Governing Speech Restrictions in India

Source: Backgrounder, Limits on Speech.docx

1. Constitutional provision: Article 19(1)(a) guarantees free speech and Article 19(2) permits enumerated reasonable restrictions.
2. Constitutional anchors for hate speech regulation: Article 14 on equality, Article 15 on non discrimination, Article 21 on dignity, Article 51A on the fundamental duty of harmony, and the Preambular value of fraternity.
3. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023: Section 196 on promoting enmity between groups, Section 197 on imputations prejudicial to national integration, Section 299 on outraging religious feelings, and Section 356 on defamation.
4. Section 152, effective from 1 July 2024, replaced Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and criminalises acts exciting secession, armed rebellion, subversive activities, separatist feelings or endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity, with punishment extending to life imprisonment.
5. Representation of the People Act, 1951: Section 123(4) prohibits false statements about candidates during elections, and the Act carries the electoral speech restrictions.
6. Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021: Govern online content, intermediary due diligence and takedown obligations.
7. Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995: Prohibits misleading and prohibited broadcast content under its Programme Code.
8. Cinematograph Act, 1952: Governs film certification and censorship.
9. Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986: Restricts indecent depiction of women in publications and advertisements.
10. Kedar Nath Singh versus State of Bihar (1962): Sedition requires both a tendency to create disorder and incitement to violence, and vigorous criticism of government measures is protected.
11. Shreya Singhal versus Union of India (2015): Distinguishes discussion, advocacy and incitement, protects discussion and advocacy even where unpopular, and holds that vague terms such as annoyance or inconvenience cannot be the basis for restricting speech.
12. Amish Devgan versus Union of India (2020): Applies a three part contextual test of content, intent of the speaker and harm caused or likely to be caused, with public figures held to a higher standard.
13. Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay versus Union of India (29 April 2026): The Supreme Court dismissed a batch of petitions seeking new hate speech laws, holding that creating criminal offences belongs exclusively to the legislature and that the existing framework is adequate, the real problem being an enforcement deficit.

Back2Basics: S.R. Bommai versus Union of India

1. What it is: A Supreme Court ruling of 1994 delivered by a nine judge bench, arising out of the dismissal of State governments and the imposition of President's Rule under Article 356.
2. Its holding on federalism: It made the exercise of Article 356 justiciable, requiring the proclamation to rest on relevant material and permitting courts to restore a dismissed government.
3. Its holding on secularism: It declared secularism a part of the Constitution's basic structure, and therefore beyond the amending power under Article 368.
4. The consequence for State action: A State government acting against secularism can itself be a ground for action under Article 356.
5. Why it governs this item: It is the authority for the proposition that the State may neither favour a religion nor punish disrespect towards one, which is the core objection to a scripture specific penal law.
6. Its broader effect: It sharply reduced the routine use of President's Rule, which had been invoked over a hundred times before the ruling.

Way Forward

1. Legislate through the correct route: A State that wishes to create a criminal offence on a Concurrent List subject should reserve the Bill for Presidential assent under Article 254(2) rather than route it through a ceremonial statute.
2. Protect all scriptures equally or none: A provision framed around communal harmony must apply uniformly across faiths to satisfy the intelligible differentia and rational nexus test.
3. Restore sentencing discretion: Replacing the mandatory minimum with a graded range lets courts distinguish deliberate desecration from an inadvertent act, meeting the Mithu standard.
4. Define the operative terms: Statutory definitions of insult and religious feelings, and an express requirement of proximate incitement, would reduce the vagueness Shreya Singhal identified as fatal.
5. Insert a pre registration safeguard: Requiring a preliminary inquiry or prior sanction before a First Information Report is registered addresses the chilling effect that operates at the point of complaint.
6. Refer Ramji Lal Modi for reconsideration: A larger bench revisiting the 1957 ruling in the light of Shreya Singhal would settle the doctrinal inconsistency that now runs through religious offence law.

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