‘IN DELHI, ANAND MARRIAGE ACT TO COME INTO EFFECT SOON’

CHANDIGARH: Members of the Sikh community can soon register their marriage under the Anand Marriage Act in Delhi, said Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) general secretary Manjinder Singh Sirsa.

Punjab and Haryana have already implemented it.

In a statement, Sirsa on Thursday said that the Act would be implemented in the national capital this week, as he had taken up the matter with Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijal and apprised him of lack of implementation of the Act.

“I am thankful to the LG who understood the gravity of the situation and ordered its implementation immediately,” he said.

The DSGMC general secretary said the file regarding its implementation had been by LG office to divisional commissioner and was presently with secretary, law. “The secretary is likely to clear the file in next two days and send it back to LG. After the approval of LG, the Act will come into force in Delhi,” he said.

Sirsa said that with this, more than a century old demand of the Sikhs would be fulfilled. “It was in 1909 when the demand for the Act was made for the first time. A long battle had to be fought for enacting this Act and its implementation,” he said. In 2012, then President Pratibha Devi Singh Patil cleared the Anand Marriage (amendment) Act and all the states were asked to implement it.

The DSGMC leader said he was also taking up the issue of its implementation with the chief ministers and chief secretaries of different states and also written letters to them.

› The law secretary is likely to clear the file in next two days and send it back to the LG. After the approval of LG, the Act will come into force in Delhi. MANJINDER SINGJH SIRSA, Delhi MLA and DSGMC general secretary