The Punjab Legislative Assembly (a state in northwestern India with a Sikh-majority population) unanimously passed the Jaagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar (Amendment) Bill, 2026 on April 13, introducing life imprisonment as punishment for the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib, the central religious scripture of Sikhism. The legislation amends a 2008 law and marks the latest in a series of attempts by successive state governments to criminalise sacrilege, following a string of high-profile incidents in recent years. Previous efforts by both the Shiromani Akali Dal–BJP and Congress governments were blocked by India's federal government, which argued that any such law must apply equally across all religions under the country's secular constitutional framework.