PESH AWAR: Experts have welcomed the proposed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Sikh Anand Kaaraj Bill, 2026, saying it will resolve multiple issues faced by the Sikh community related to their marriages for the last 117 years.
A briefing on the proposed legislation was organised by the Parliamentary Caucus on Minorities, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, in collaboration with NGO Blue Veins and the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR).
The participants included members of the Parliamentary Caucus on Minorities, members of the Provincial Assembly, representatives of minority communities, officials of the provincial government and the Assembly Secretariat, NCHR representatives, civil society and the media.
The organisers said the bill went substantially beyond the century-old Anand Marriage Act, 1909, which primarily provided legal recognition to marriages solemnised according to the Sikh Anand ceremony.
They, however, said the proposed legislation established a broader framework covering solemnisation, compulsory registration and certification, matrimonial rights and duties, nullity, dissolution, reconciliation, maintenance, custody and legal recognition of Sikh marriages, which were missing in the existing law.
Programme Manager at Blue Veins and member of the Bill’s drafting committee Qamar Naseem informed participants that Blue Veins had been providing technical support to the Local Government Department and the Parliamentary Caucus on Minorities in the development and review of the proposed legislation.
‘The objective of the technical process has been to help translate the concerns and lived realities of the Sikh community into a legally coherent and administratively workable framework,’ he said.
Mr Naseem said the significance of the bill lay not only in recognising Anand Kaaraj but in creating practical pathways for registration, documentation, matrimonial remedies and legal recognition.
‘Continued consultation with the Sikh community and coordination among the relevant government institutions will remain critical as the bill moves through the legislative process,’ he said.