Chandigarh, Feb. 17 -- Three persons, including a former joint secretary of SGPC's joint publication department, have been granted interim protection from arrest by the Punjab and Haryana high court in connection with the December 7 FIR regarding disappearance of 328 saroops of the Guru Granth Sahib. These include former joint secretary Gurbachan Singh, former clerk Baj Singh and bookbinder (jild saaz) Kulwant Singh, who had approached the high court in January. While allowing the interim protection, the court said the FIR in the matter had been lodged after a lot of delay and there was no proper explanation for it. It also noted that the FIR had not been lodged by SGPC, who was responsible for religious affairs. Posting the matter for further hearing on April 28, the court ordered that they be released on bail in the event of arrest. The matter regarding the disappearance of saroops from SGPC's publication house in Amritsar had come to light in June 2020. The matter was exposed by human rights advocacy group Punjab Human Rights Organisation by writing a letter to Akal Takht and Punjab chief secretary in 2020. Over five years later, the Amritsar police registered a case on December 7 last year against 16 people on the complaint of sacked Golden Temple hazuri raagi Bhai Baldev Singh Wadala, who is head of Sikh Sadbhawna Dal, a private organisation. The FIR was registered under Sections 295 (injuring or defiling a place of worship or sacred object with intent to insult a religion), 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 409 (criminal breach of trust), 465 (forgery) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, apart from Section 5 of the Jagat Jot Shri Gurugranth Sahib Satkar Act, 2008. As per lawyer Vivek Thakur, who appeared in HC for one of the petitioners, arguments raised were of delay in registration of the case and police acting on the complaint of a private body instead of SGPC. Kulwant Singh, a contractual bookbinder, is accused of preparing 61 saroops without authorisation and failing to maintain record. Between 2012-13 and 2019-20, 12.67 lakh pages were supplied to the petitioner in excess and there was no record of it, police had told the court. In the case of Gurbachan Singh, it was stated that the petitioner, who served in SGPC's publication department from 2018 onwards, without approval, verbally ordered binders to prepare 61 and 125 saroops from additional pages to make up for the decreasing number of scriptures. He allegedly instructed Kanwaljit Singh to issue store receipts. Baj Singh is accused of collecting the saroops without authorisation for distribution and not depositing the money received, thus embezzling Rs.9.8 lakh over four years. So far, two of the total accused, Satinder Singh Kohli, a former internal auditor of the SGPC, and Kanwaljit Singh, a former assistant supervisor of the SGPC publishing house, have been arrested....