BY: GUPTA DAS

http://harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/01-09/editorials3816.htm

    Jan 08, CALIFORNIA, USA (SUN) — On Tuesday, January 6, 2009, a California court judge dismissed the lawsuit filed against the BBT by Nimai Pandit’s version of ISKCON Inc., a New York corporation.

    This turn of events was not exactly a surprise. The lawsuit was premised on the altogether outrageous legal assertion that the sole beneficiary of the 1972 California trust (BBT) formed by Srila Prabhupada is the ISKCON Inc. controlled by a small band of hopefuls led by Nitai Pandit, rather than ISKCON worldwide.

    Yet an unmotivated reading of the trust instrument along with a review of Srila Prabhupada’s statements and actions on this point overwhelmingly evidence his unequivocal desire for ISKCON worldwide to benefit from his writings and other works. As a trust interpretation issue, I’d have to say that this would not be considered a close call.

    It appears that similar motivated reasoning now also fuels litigation by Nimai Pandit’s band of hopefuls in New York. There the claims revolve around similarly twisted assertions, most notably that the present GBC of ISKCON is not the ‘real’ GBC in spite of almost four decades of continuity, identity, function and authority. It doesn’t take much insight to come to the conclusion that the illegitimate GBC theory will soon go the way of the ISKCON Inc. sole beneficiary theory.

    From my point of view as a practicing attorney, most of these strained claims are based on trying to squeeze broad, idealized spiritual interpretations into a circumscribed and limited legal reality. Courts even recognize this dynamic and refuse to enter into any fray which involves the interpretation of religious doctrine. This may well be why Srila Prabhupada himself avoided the legal wrangling associated with the Gaudiya Math, which entangled so many of his Godbrothers.

    With regards,

    Gupta das
    Joseph Fedorowsky