The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) has sig­nalled its in­ten­tion to va­cate its pend­ing law­suit over the short-lived pro­hi­bi­tion against open-air cre­ma­tions for COVID-19.

In a press re­lease is­sued on Thurs­day evening, the SDMS ad­mit­ted that the law­suit had be­come aca­d­e­m­ic af­ter the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs an­nounced the change fol­low­ing a meet­ing with its rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“We con­sid­er it a vic­to­ry that the time­ly res­o­lu­tion has saved tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey as well as pre­cious ju­di­cial time,’ it said.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion sug­gest­ed that the res­o­lu­tion of the is­sue was pos­si­bly helped by the fil­ing of the law­suit and the sub­se­quent di­a­logue be­tween the par­ties.

“De­spite the out of court res­o­lu­tion, we are cog­nizant that the is­suance of the court pro­ceed­ings may have forced prop­er in­tro­spec­tion and would have ul­ti­mate­ly as­sist­ed in the res­o­lu­tion,” the re­lease said.

The Ma­ha Sab­ha’s law­suit on the is­sue came late last year month af­ter Cindy-Ann Ram­sa­roop-Per­sad sued the State in Au­gust.

Ram­sa­roop-Per­sad’s fa­ther Silochan Ram­sa­roop passed away five days af­ter be­ing ad­mit­ted to the Cou­va Med­ical and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty on Ju­ly 20, last year.

Ram­sa­roop-Per­sad’s broth­er ap­plied at the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion for a per­mit for their fa­ther to be cre­mat­ed at the Wa­ter­loo cre­ma­tion site on Au­gust 10 and it was grant­ed.

How­ev­er, hours lat­er, a po­lice of­fi­cer con­tact­ed the fam­i­ly and claimed that the per­mit was re­voked as it was is­sued in er­ror be­cause of the on­go­ing pro­hi­bi­tion against open-air pyre cre­ma­tions for COVID-19 vic­tims.

As part of the law­suit, Ram­sa­roop-Per­sad’s le­gal team is re­ly­ing on the ev­i­dence of epi­demi­ol­o­gist Dr Far­ley Cleghorn, who claims that the pol­i­cy was un­nec­es­sary. They al­so claim that the pol­i­cy was not sup­port­ed by the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) or the Unit­ed States Cen­tre for Dis­ease Con­trol, whose ad­vice the min­istry and by ex­ten­sion the Gov­ern­ment has been re­ly­ing on dur­ing the on­go­ing pan­dem­ic.

In re­sponse to the law­suit, the State has re­lied on the ev­i­dence of Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram, who claimed that an av­er­age pyre does not com­plete­ly de­stroy a hu­man body and that the erup­tion of bod­i­ly flu­ids from corpses presents “an un­cer­tain risk” to mourn­ers at an open-air cre­ma­tion.

Ram­sa­roop-Per­sad’s law­suit came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams ear­ly this week and she set the tri­al for the case for ear­ly March. The tri­al of the SDMS’s case was al­so sched­uled to go to tri­al in March.

Con­tact­ed on Thurs­day, Ram­sa­roop-Per­sad’s lawyer Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al said her client’s law­suit would con­tin­ue as it is a con­sti­tu­tion­al claim over al­leged breach­es of fun­da­men­tal rights.

“While we are hap­py that Hin­dus would no longer be forced to aban­don their cus­toms and tra­di­tions root­ed in their spir­i­tu­al be­liefs, chang­ing the pol­i­cy when the in­fec­tion rate is so high lends cre­dence to the wide­ly held view that there was no sci­en­tif­ic ba­sis un­der­ly­ing the pol­i­cy to be­gin with, mak­ing it all the more im­por­tant for Ms Ram­sa­roop-Per­sad’s case to be heard,” Lutch­me­di­al said.