LONDON, UK—The Supreme Court is to give its judgement this week on the spiritual status of ‘Sant Baba Jeet Singh,’ leader of the Nirmal Kutia Johal cult.
Jeet Singh and his followers have asked the courts to intervene in an international dispute over the ownership of Gurdwaras in Birmingham and High Wycombe.
Jeet Singh’s supporters consider him to be the Third Holy Saint, who, as a successor of the ‘First Holy Saint’ and founder of the Gurdwaras, is entitled to hire and fire the trustees who run them. Others, however, contest his spiritual authority, as the ‘Second Holy Saint’ died without naming an heir to his leadership, or the properties.
The case was rejected by Appeal Court judges in 2012, who said that it involved an “impossible task of resolving [issues about] religious doctrines, and practices of adherents of the Sikh religion”.
Lord Justice Mummery warned that the questions at the heart of the dispute were “questions which a court has no business deciding because, if it attempted to do so, it would become embroiled in religious controversies about subjective beliefs and the linked internal affairs of a religious body, on none of which can the court properly make a judicial ruling”.
But Jeet Singh’s supporters insisted important broader issues were at stake, such as whether the rights and powers held by individuals within religious institutions can be enforced in a UK court of law, or become redundant, and they took their case to the Supreme Court.
After two days of deliberation, five judges will give their verdicts, which legal experts say could have important consequences for the law and its involvement with religion.
