Plea For National Uniform Public Holiday Policy : Supreme Court Seeks Responses Of Centre, States

The Supreme Court on Monday sought the responses of the Governments of the Centre and the States on a PIL which sought for a national uniform public holiday policy.

The Public Interest Litigation(PIL) was filed by "All India Shiromani Singh Sabha" seeking a uniform and non-arbitrary implementation of policy for declaring public holidays as against the "whims and fancies of various political groups".

The petitioner was primarily aggrieved by the fact that the birth anniversary of the 10th Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singhji's has yet not been declared a public holiday, although he is an important historic figure.

The PIL stated that there was no legislation dealing with declaration of public holidays.  However, in countries like New Zealand, the UK and the USA, the holidays were governed by the legislation.

Public holidays are declared through executive instructions and they are based on "whims and fancies" of various political and community groups, the plea stated.

In this backdrop, the petitioner sought a direction for issuing guidelines for declaring public and gazetted holidays all over the country.

When the bench came for admission before a bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that  he will get instructions on the matter.

Senior Advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that he will serve copies to the standing counsels of the state governments.