Sreya Kanugula
The SC sought responses from the Central government as well as the States on a filed Public Interest Litigation seeking a policy of National Uniform Public Holiday.
The PIL, filed by the “All India Shiromani Singh Sabha,” sought a non-arbitrary uniform implementation of this policy which will be used for declaring public holidays across the country.
And this would be done so against any “whims and fancies of various political groups,” as stated in the application.
The primary aggravation of the petitioner was about the non-declaration of the 10th Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singhji’s birth anniversary as a public holiday despite the religious figure’s historical importance.
It was stated in the litigation that no legislation existed in the current moment that dealt with public holiday declaration. Nonetheless, in countries such as New Zealand, the UK, and the USA, legislation decided the holidays.
The plea continued to state that, the holidays are only declared through instructions given by the executive and they’re declared on the “whims and fancies” of several political as well as community groups.
With regards to such a backdrop, the petitioner asked for a direction on the issue of guidelines for gazetted and public holiday declaration across the country.
When the bench came for admission in front of the bench headed by the CJI, Tushar Mehta, the Solicitor General gave the submission he will enquire about the needed instructions regarding the said matter.
Vikas Singh, a senior advocate representing the petitioner, gave the submission that copies of this litigation will be served by him to the state governments’ standing counsels as well.