A Hindu spiritual healer today won the right to be cremated on a traditional funeral pyre, opening the way for thousands of the cremations to take place in the British countryside
Davender Ghai, 71, who believes that a pyre is essential to ''a good death'' and the release of his spirit into the afterlife, was refused permission to be cremated according to his Hindu beliefs by Newcastle City Council and lost a challenge to that decision at the High Court in London in May last year.
But today the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, who headed a panel of three appeal judges, said before delivering the court's ruling: ''Contrary to what everyone seems to have assumed below, and I am not saying it is anyone's fault, 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''.
Mr Ghai commented after the ruling: ''I am very happy. I have always said that I came here to clarity the law.
''All the time I had complete faith that justice would be done. Now I can go in peace.''
Mr Justice Cranston had ruled in the High Court that pyres were prohibited by law and this was "justified".
At the appeal hearing in January, Lord Neuberger told Mr Ghai that all he had to show was that what he wanted fell within existing law.
Lord Neuberger asked Rambert de Mello, representing Mr Ghai, what his client wanted and was told that the funeral pyre would have to be of wood and be open to the sky but the site could be surrounded by walls and the pyre covered with a roof which had an opening.
The judge said the court would hear argument on that point alone before deciding whether to continue on human rights and discrimination points.
Jonathan Swift, representing the Ministry of Justice which opposed the case, said the law stipulated that cremations must be within a building which in this case meant a structure bounded by walls with a roof.
What Mr Ghai was proposing did not comply with the law which was there to protect "decorum and decency", he told the judges.
But the appeal judges ruled that the aims of the Cremation Act were to ensure that cremations were subject to uniform rules throughout the country and carried out in buildings which were appropriately equipped and away from homes or roads.
The judges accepted that Mr Ghai was willing to be cremated within existing rules with his funeral pyre "enclosed in a structure" and ruled that the Ministry of Justice definition of a building was too narrow.
All Mr Ghai wanted was a traditional fire and for the sun to be able to fall on his body and this could be carried out in a purpose-built crematorium within the law, they ruled.
Lord Neuberger said the court had been shown pictures of premises used to cremate Hindus which are "buildings" with the Cremation Act.
Mr Ghai, the founder of the Anglo-Asian Friendship Society (AAFS), wants a permit for an open-air cremation site in a remote part of Northumberland.
He said in a statement that he was "overjoyed" by the decision.
"This case was truly a matter of life and death for me and today's verdict has breathed new life into an old man's dreams".
He added: "I am overwhelmed by the general public's sympathy and also the number of landowners who have offered land to accommodate my natural cremation".
Daily Telegraph
