Category: Sikhism

An Indian holy man who tried to sue a journalist and a newspaper which said he was an impostor has been granted the right to appeal an earlier decision to strike out his libel claim.

Sitting at the Court of Appeal today Lady Justice Smith approved an oral application to renew the appeal on behalf of His Holiness Sant Baba Jeet Singh Ji Maharaj.

The holy man – who heads the Nirmal Kutia Johal religious order – originally had his attempt to sue journalist Hardeep Singh and Eastern Media Group – owner of the Sikh Times – struck out at the High Court in May.

The action came over an article Singh wrote for The Sikh Times in August 2007 in which alleged – the libel claim suggested — the holy man was the leader of a cult and an impostor who had disturbed the peace in the Sikh community of High Wycombe and promoted blasphemy and the sexual exploitation and abuse of women.

A school that fought a legal battle to force a Sikh pupil to remove a religious bracelet spent at least £170,000 on the lost case, it emerged yesterday.

And an MP last night accused the school of using technicalities to avoid divulging how much money it actually spent, fearing it could be much more.

Jeet Singh claimed that an article written by Hardeep Singh in a British newspaper suggested he was the leader of a cult and promoted blasphemy and the sexual exploitation and abuse of women.

The trial could not proceed as any finding would require the court to enter into issues of doctrine, tradition and practice of the Sikh religion which was contrary to established legal authority

Indian Sikhs celebrated World Turban Day on Tuesday to demonstrate the importance of retaining the headgear rather than adopting Western-style haircuts. The central event of the celebration was a contest in which hundreds of male Sikhs had to wrap a turban around their heads in Amritsar, the holiest city in Sikhdom, with the winner judged on neatness and speed, organisers said. The Sikh religious headgear is a piece of cloth about eight metres (26.4 feet) long and is carefully pleated over untrimmed hair. Gurbachan Singh, who heads the religion’s highest temporal seat — the Akal Takht — said the annual

The Sikh scriptures and the Punjabi language of many Sikhs were written in a script known as Gurmukhi. So to be fully initiated into the religion, you must know how to read it.

That has created a problem for Sikh immigrant communities.

A Sikh rights group asked a U.N. human rights committee on Monday to declare that France violated a student’s rights by expelling him for wearing a turban and to recommend repealing the law that led to it.

France passed a law in 2004 banning children in state primary and secondary schools from wearing conspicuous religious symbols, including Muslim headscarves, Jewish yarmulkes, large Christian crosses and Sikh turbans.

In a statement, the court recognised that the rule on photographs ‘amounted to interference with the exercise of the right to freedom of religion‘, but judged that this was justified

Freedom of religion ‘did not always guarantee the right to behave in a manner governed by a religious belief and did not confer on people who did so the right to disregard rules that had proved to be justified,’ the court said.