An Indian-origin social and spiritual leader in the UK today won the right to be cremated in an open air funeral pyre according to Hindu rituals, ending a prolonged legal battle. In a landmark judgement, Britain's Court of Appeal granted Davender Ghai, 71, the right to be cremated after his death in an open-air funeral pyre. Since open air cremations anywhere outside a crematorium have been prohibited in Britain under the 1902 Cremation Act, many Indian-origin families in Britain take bodies of their deceased relatives to India for cremation according to Hindu rites. Ghai has been campaigning for the right to be cremated according to his Hindu beliefs for several years and sought legal redress. His bid for Britain to allow open-air funeral pyres was opposed by the Law Secretary on the ground that people might be upset and offended by pyres and find it abhorrent that human remains were being burned in this way.