Hindu healer loses funeral pyre court battle

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A devout Hindu today lost his high court battle for the legal right to be cremated on a traditional open-air funeral pyre.

Davender Ghai, 70, told a judge at a recent hearing that a pyre was essential to "a good death" and the release of his spirit into the afterlife.

The spiritual healer, from Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, challenged Newcastle city council's refusal to permit him to be cremated according to his Hindu beliefs.

Mr Justice Cranston, sitting in London, dismissed the challenge, saying pyres were prohibited by law and the prohibition was "justified". He gave Ghai permission to take the case to the court of appeal, but warned: "I don't think there is a real prospect of success."

In his ruling, the judge said: "The Cremation Act 1902 and its attendant 2008 regulations are clear in their effect: the burning of human remains, other than in a crematorium, is a criminal offence. This effectively prohibits open-air funeral pyres."

Ghai is currently in India receiving medical treatment. In a statement after the ruling, he said: "I respect the decision of the court but, for me, this is quite literally a matter of life and death. I shall appeal until the very end, in the faith that my dying wish will not go unheard. This is the beginning, not the end.

"I have been pitted against the might of the ministry of justice and Newcastle city council – but I take solace from the fact that, with faith, a David like me can ultimately overcome the Goliath of state machinery."

Ghai brought the challenge under article 9 of the European convention on human rights, which protects religious freedom, and article 8, which covers the right to private and family life.

The justice secretary, Jack Straw, who had resisted Ghai's challenge, argued that others in the community would be "upset and offended" by pyres and would "find it abhorrent that human remains were being burned in this way".

Ghai's lawyers said that "with time, education and publicity" the public would recognise that open-air funeral pyres were "a practice worthy of respect".

However, the judge said those in favour of pyres would have to engage with the political process and attempt to change "the present balance of interests".

He ruled that article 8 did not apply to the case because an open-air pyre would not only affect family and private life but have "a public character".