SC to review expert committee report on curbing Sikh community jokes

The Supreme Court on Monday will go through the recommendations of an expert committee appointed by it to stop the circulation and commercialistion of jokes related the Sikh community.

The Supreme Court asked bodies representing the community to create a mechanism to stop such jokes within six weeks.

The committee includes retired apex court judge Justice M Y Iqbal, former bureaucrat Pawan Kumar Verma, Rajya Sabha member M P Bezbaruah and retired IAS officer Raghubir Singh.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and other bodies representing Sikhs had approached the apex court seeking a ban on jokes related to their community.

A bench comprising of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice U U Lalit had in April stated that the SGPC's petition seeking a ban would be clubbed along with other pending matters on the issue and would be heard together.

In February, during the hearing of a case pertaining to over 5,000 websites which feature jokes on Sikhs, the court had asked how it could be determined whether a particular joke is derogatory or not.