A devout British Hindu on Wednesday won a protracted legal battle over the right to be cremated on a traditional funeral pyre consistent with his religious practices, after he agreed that the cremation site could be surrounded by walls and have a roof with an opening.
Seventy-one-year-old Davendra Ghai, founder of the Anglo-Asian Friendship Society, said the Appeals Court’s verdict had “breathed new life into an old man’s dreams.”
“Now if I go tomorrow I will go peacefully, because I know that I will have a good send-off. Everyone should live and die according to their own religion,” he said.
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Mr. Ghai, who moved to Britain from Kenya in 1958, launched his legal campaign in 2006 when the Newcastle City Council refused him permission for a cremation site in a remote part of Northumberland, north-east England.
The council’s ruling that the burning of human remains anywhere outside a crematorium was prohibited under the 1902 Cremation Act, was backed by the Justice Ministry and also upheld by the High Court last year.
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Mr. Ghai challenged the court’s verdict in the Appeals Court which ruled in his favour.
Delivering the verdict, Judge David Neuberger, who chaired a three-judge panel, said: “It seems to us that Mr. Ghai’s religious and personal beliefs as to how his remains should be cremated once he dies can be accommodated within current cremation legislation.”
Earlier, Mr. Ghai’s lawyer told the court that his client agreed that the funeral pyre could be surrounded by walls and be covered with a roof with an opening.
Mr. Ghai said his legal battle had left him exhausted “physically, mentally and financially” but he was happy that finally he had won. He claimed that his request had often been “misinterpreted” and people thought he wanted an open-air funeral “whereas I always accepted that buildings and permanent structures would be appropriate.”
“I always maintained that I wanted to clarify the law, not disobey or disrespect it. The Court of Appeal understood my request was consistent with both the spirit and letter of the law and my only regret is that tax payers’ money would have been saved had that been recognised in 2006,” he said.