Rashpal Samrai & Ors v Rajinder Kalia

Section 33 of the Limitation Act 1980 requires a broad balance of prejudice. Where limitation is tried with the merits, the court may decide the claim against the claimant without first determining limitation. If the claim provisionally succeeds, the court must then assess delay and its effect on evidential cogency.

Religious influence does not itself establish undue influence or vitiate adult consent. An adult who retains freedom and capacity to choose may be influenced or persuaded without being legally coerced. A claim in undue influence must identify the transactions impugned and connect them to a specific exercise of undue influence. Broad estimates of payments, work or travel are insufficient.

The claimants alleged that the defendant, a priest and spiritual leader of a Baba Balak Nath temple in Coventry, had sexually abused or exploited them and had obtained money and unpaid work through undue influence. The first four claimants also alleged sexual abuse, including abuse during childhood and rape in adulthood. The seventh claimant advanced financial claims based on undue influence. The fifth and sixth claimants’ claims had earlier been struck out because their statements of case, schedules and witness statements had not been properly verified or prepared in their own language.

The central issues were whether the alleged sexual conduct occurred, whether adult claimants had legally valid consent, whether the defendant exercised undue influence, whether limitation or laches should bar the claims, and whether harassment or fundamental dishonesty had been established.

1. Disposition. All remaining claims were dismissed, with judgment for the defendant. The court declined to find any claimant fundamentally dishonest.
2. Limitation. Applying KR v Bryn Alyn Community Ltd and JL v Bowen, where limitation and the merits are tried together the court should first consider whether the claim is made out on the evidence. A finding against the claimant may determine the case without a section 33 exercise. Where the claim is provisionally established, the court must assess the balance of prejudice, including delay, lost evidence, evidential cogency, reasons for delay, conduct and proportionality. Applying those principles, section 33 was not disapplied for the first four claimants.
3. Consent. The court accepted that section 74 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 supplies the relevant formulation of consent. The first claimant, although influenced by the defendant’s teachings, was an adult who retained freedom and capacity to choose. Influence or persuasion was not equivalent to coercion. The court accepted that coercion of an adult ordinarily required substantial control or restriction of freedom, rather than merely being asked or told to do something while living at liberty. The first claimant’s account of a sexual relationship was provisionally accepted, but her claim nevertheless failed because the necessary lack of freedom and capacity was not established.
4. Undue influence. The relationship between a spiritual adviser and devotee may give rise to an irrebuttable presumption of influence. That did not dispense with the need to prove that the influence was undue, was exercised in relation to the impugned transactions, and caused those transactions. The claims failed because they relied on broad, unexplained and materially inaccurate schedules rather than identified transactions linked to a specific exercise of undue influence.
5. Harassment. Although some unpleasant conduct by supporters might have occurred, the evidence did not establish that it was directed, procured or authorised by the defendant. The harassment claims therefore failed.
6. Procedure. The fifth and sixth claimants’ claims had been struck out because their statements of case, schedules and witness statements were not properly prepared or verified in accordance with the Civil Procedure Rules and Practice Directions. The defect was fundamental and could not be cured merely by translating the existing statements.

First-instance judgment of the High Court (King’s Bench Division). The judgment also records an interim judgment dated 5 July 2024 striking out the claims of the fifth and sixth claimants.