The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) has filed a complaint with the Amritsar Police against GTC Network, alleging that the broadcaster breached its policy governing the telecast of Gurbani live from the Golden Temple, Amritsar.“SGPC holds the sole legal authority to grant or withhold permission to any entity for the telecast of Gurbani from Sri Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple), Amritsar,” the complaint reads.It further states, “PTC continues, to date, to manage the complete technical arrangement for SGPC’s Gurbani live telecast on YouTube, on SGPC’s behalf and under its authorization, and no other entity, including GTC, has ever been granted any corresponding right or authorization.”At present, the SGPC streams Gurbani through its YouTube channel, “SGPC Sri Amritsar”, three times daily and also provides extended coverage through Facebook, its official website and an Apple application.However, in the absence of its own satellite channel, it has continued to depend on infrastructure operated by the PTC Network.The SGPC has maintained that although anyone can share a live link, no channel could be permitted to rebroadcast the content without the committee’s approval.Confirming the development, SGPC’s legal counsel Amanbir Singh Siali said that the complaint has been registered with the Amritsar Police Commissioner in which the SGPC has demanded action against GTC.On the other hand, the founder and managing director of GTC Network Rabindra Narayan alleged that the SGPC has been adopting ‘pick and choose’ policy against the broadcaster.Narayan, former MD of PTC, alleged that scores of channels who had been relaying the live feed of Gurbani from the SGPC-authorised channel (referring to SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal’s PTC Channel), yet no legal action had been taken by the SGPC.“The action was taken only against GTC whereas at least two channels, I have spotted last evening, have been carrying the transmission through SGPC link long before GTC ever did. These channels superimpose their own logos over the SGPC feed. Some hide the SGPC logo altogether. I can provide proof, if asked,” he said.Advocate Siali said Narayan was referring to the ‘sharing’ of the Gurbani feed from the YouTube or social media channels of the SGPC, which was open and allowed for anyone to share.“The GTC Network had retransmitted the Gurbani feed with its on-screen ‘logo’ without any authorisation on its satellite platform, which was highly objectionable and breach of SGPC’s rights,” he said.He said that had there been any other channel retransmitting Gurbani with its logo, stern action would be taken against them.It was alleged that GTC Network, since August 6, has been relaying Gurbani with its logo without obtaining any permission from the SGPC. Following this, the SGPC had served a legal notice to GTC leading to temporarily suspension of the Gurbani from its platforms but it was restarted.SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami had claimed that GTC Network sent a letter at around 9 pm on August 5, seeking permission to broadcast the live programme. However, without waiting for a response to the letter, the network allegedly picked the link from the SGPC’s YouTube channel early the next morning and started rebroadcasting the Gurbani from 3.15 am.Dhami maintained that “all the rights of Gurbani broadcast will be reserved with the SGPC only and any channel, web, YouTube channel, website, or social media platform, other than authorised by the SGPC, has no right to re-direct, re-stream, download or upload Gurbani broadcast from SGPC’s YouTube channel or social media pages”.