Etobicoke Sikh temple ousts 10 board members
Discharged group at Sikh Spiritual Centre refuses to accept the decision
Etobicoke, April 22, 2010:
A Sikh temple in Etobicoke voted off almost half its board of directors on Wednesday afternoon, but the ousted group is refusing to accept the decision.
Members of the Sikh Spiritual Centre, at Albion and Hwy. 27, were scheduled to meet and discuss the future of the centre’s 21-member board.
But 10 of the members refused to take part in the vote, saying that the 11-person ruling group, which includes president Gurinder Singh and secretary Major Singh, were preventing members that disagreed with them from attending the meeting.
Major Singh said that 56 SSC members were eligible to vote at the meeting. The opposition, which includes now-former board members Bhopinder Dhillon and a similarly named member, Major Singh Kler, disputed that number, saying over 125 regular attendees had voting power.
Two years of volunteer work at the temple is required to become a voting member, said Baldev Sandhu, another member of the ousted group.
The 10 opposing members had made a legal motion to stop the meeting, but it was denied. So, they refused to enter the upstairs meeting space, which was guarded by hired security guards and police.
The governing body had been elected about two years ago. Last month, a fist fight broke out between board members inside the temple, which explained the heavy presence of police. A wave of bloody violence has recently swept Sikh temples in the GTA. Last Sunday, hammers, knives and machetes were drawn in a fight at Brampton’s Guru Nanak Sikh Centre.
Inside the SSC on Wednesday, Gurinder Singh, Major Singh and the 42 people they had gathered in person and by proxy voted to oust the dissenters and elect 10 new men to the board of directors.
Refusing to accept this decision, Dhillon, Kler and their party gathered in the prayer hall and chose their own 21-member board of directors, with Bhalwinder Singh Gill as its president.
Now, the SSC has two groups of 21 people claiming to be its board of directors.
“We are in control of the temple, we already run the temple,” said Dhillon, when asked how his group intended to take power.
Andrew Tulk, the lawyer representing the 10 ousted members, said a legal application to reinstate the ousted members was the next “obvious step,” but that the issue won’t be resolved for six to eight months.
(News By The Star.com)
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