The Bombay High Court on Thursday dismissed a plea which had alleged that Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who was considered a "saint" by many in the Sikh community, was referred to as a "terrorist" in a Balbharti textbook in Maharashtra.
The court said it had gone through the contested text, but did not find any "insulting or irreverent reference" made to Bhindranwale.
"The name of Saint Bhindranwale (sic) is mentioned with reference to his support for the Khalistan movement... and the books say that operation 'Blue Star' (in 1984) was undertaken to evict terrorists out of the Golden temple (in Amritsar)," the court said in its written order.
"It is in this context that we must read the alleged offending sentence," a bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Bharati Dangre said.
The bench pronounced its judgement on the writ petition filed by city-based lawyer Amritpal Singh Khalsa.
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In his plea filed through advocate Mathew Nedumpara, Khalsa had raised objections to certain contents in the Balbharti textbook of history and political science prescribed for students of Class 9.
Khalsa said in his plea that a chapter in the book referred to Bhindranwale "as a terrorist and claimed that he was arrested by the police despite the fact that he was never arrested in his life".
The plea claimed that the Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbooks Production and Curriculum Research (popularly known as Balbharti) spreads "vicious propaganda against the Sikh struggle movement" and that "shaheed Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was considered a saint by many people in the Sikh community."
The plea, however, was opposed by the Maharashtra government that had urged the court to dismiss the petition, saying the text in the book had been approved by a team of experts.
The state's counsel, V A Thorat, had also said that Khalsa, the petitioner, was just an individual and did not represent the entire Sikh community.
The court noted in its judgement that the petitioner had made the allegation merely relying on just a part of the chapter and that he had failed to read the text in context of the wider topic covered in the chapter.
"The chapter covers topics, including India's internal challenges. While referring to the unrest in Punjab, the demand for an independent state, all the events are set out," the bench observed.
It said the contents of the chapter did not refer to Bhindranwale as a "terrorist".
"If the chapter is read as a whole, then we do not find anything there in which would hurt the religious sentiments of the Sikh community," the court said.
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