A B.C. Supreme Court judge presided recently over an “unfortunate and sad dispute” concerning what was to be done with cremated remains of a Sikh man in the face of conflict among his survivors.
Justice Frits Verhoeven heard the case in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster concerning the ashes of Dalip Singh Mangat, who died in September of 2024. The judge granted a petition from 80-year-old Gurdev Kaur Mangat, the deceased’s wife of 62 years, to scatter her husband’s ashes over the ocean, somewhere near White Rock, from a boat. “My decision is that the petitioner will have the sole right to dispose of the remains in an appropriate manner,” he concluded. “So the petition is granted.”
Sundeep Baines is the couple’s daughter, and respondent in this case.
“The petitioner and her daughter Ms. Baines agree that the Sikh faith and religion provides that the body is to be cremated, and the cremated remains, the ashes, are to be spread over waters,” Verhoeven noted in his reasons for judgment. “The difficulty is essentially that Ms. Baines believes she is unwelcome at the ceremony and, as she puts it, would not feel safe in attending the ceremony if it is controlled by her mother, due to family hostility and conflict that she describes in her affidavit.”
“Her descriptions are of a generic variety, but I accept that the family is not getting along,” he noted.
The court heard Dalip Singh Mangat executed a will a few days before he died. “According to the evidence, it is the only will. The will named Ms. Baines as sole trustee. The will said nothing about funeral arrangements, or what should be done with the remains of the deceased.”
Sundeep Baines argued she has “highest priority” to control what’s to be done with the ashes, followed by her mother, in accordance with the Cremation, Interment and Funeral Services Act. However, the judge observed, the Act also allows for the petition brought before him.
The daughter offered a compromise, arguing there is nothing in the Sikh religion preventing cremated remains from being divided. She proposed to give the majority of the ashes to her mother, she’d take some smaller part, and they’d have separate ceremonies.
But the judge noted her mother “is not content with anything like that,” and wants one ceremony. “She says that Ms. Baines is very welcome to attend, but if she doesn’t feel safe being on the same vessel, that is, the same boat as the petitioner and others are on, then if she wishes Ms. Baines could attend the ceremony from a separate vessel.”
Baine’s position was that this would deny her “meaningful participation in the ceremony for the disposition of her father’s remains.”
Verhoeven noted that the will doesn’t address what should be done with the remains and “obviously that issue was not anticipated by the deceased.
“In my view, the order should go to the petitioner. It seems to me that where the deceased gave no specific directions, his spouse would be in an exceptionally good position to know what his wishes might have been in the circumstances. Leaving that aside, obviously a spouse of 62 years should, as the statute reflects, have a very strong say in what happens with the remains.
“I am not satisfied that dividing the remains in some way is a satisfactory solution to the problem,” the judge added. “I can see that in some circumstances, families might choose to divide the ashes, probably with a consensus or the agreement of everybody who is interested. That is not the situation before me. Perhaps in some circumstances that I cannot envisage a court might make such an order. No case has been cited in which such an order has been made. Nor am I prepared to endorse the alternative suggestion of Ms. Baines, which is that she be given sole authority to spread the ashes over the water, and that she record the ceremony for later viewing by others.”