Patiala- A day after the Urban Estate Police registered a case against Punjabi University Vice-Chancellor (VC) Jagdeep Singh, Dean (Academic) Jaswinder Singh Brar, Registrar Davinder Singh, Publication Bureau Incharge Harjinderpal Singh Kalra and others for allegedly “digging holes to bury” the erroneous copies of the ‘Mahan Kosh’, the VC has issued a written apology, clarifying that there was no wrong intention in destroying the erroneous copies of the ‘Mahan Kosh’.
Apart from this, university officials are also conducting a paath at the university gurdwara to express remorse and seek forgiveness for the mistake.
On Friday, Patiala Police had registered a case against the accused under Section 298 of the Indian Penal Code, 2023, which deals with damaging a place of worship with intent to insult any religion. Any such violation is punishable with imprisonment for two years or fine or both.
“It is important to mention that the issue of errors in the ‘Mahan Kosh’ published by Punjabi University in English in 2006, in Punjabi in 2009 and in Hindi in 2013 has been a constant topic of discussion in the past years. The university had stopped its sale in 2019 and had recalled it from the sales centres.
The present Punjab government was considering a solution to this issue with full dedication. A high-level committee formed by the government was continuously holding meetings and discussions. In the recent meeting of this committee held on August 5, 2025, it was decided that all these copies with errors should be collected within 15 days…”
It is further written that, “The intention behind this was absolutely noble. In the interest of the welfare of the country, with the foresight that in the future someone may misuse these copies for resale, it was decided to destroy all these copies as a permanent solution to this issue so that no possible untoward incident takes place.”
“Punjabi University after considering various aspects of this issue decided that these copies should be kept in fresh water in the form of a river so that the water absorbs all this paper and no part of it gets scattered here and there.”
The VC said, “For this purpose, two big pits were being dug and fresh water was being filled in them. Doing so was an eco-friendly approach towards the environment as setting fire to these large-sized copies in the number of 15 thousand could have generated a large amount of smoke.’’
“Now that the students are protesting, I feel that while taking all this action, a mistake/weakness has been made that the Sikh code of conduct should have been followed for this purpose.
Vice-Chancellor Jagdeep Singh said, “I deeply regret this unknowing mistake while working with good intentions. As the head of the university, I apologize to the entire community for this. The authority is now committed to doing this work as per the Sikh code of conduct. Now, appropriate action will be taken only after receiving the guidelines of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee.”