Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Followers of guru Ashutosh Maharaj insist he has been meditating since his apparent death in 2014 
 
 An Indian court has granted permission for the followers of a long-dead spiritual guru to preserve his body in a freezer. 
 
 Ashutosh Maharaj, founder of the sect Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan (Divine Light Awakening Mission), died of a suspected heart attack in January 2014. 
 
 But his followers insist he is only meditating deeply, and will one day return to life. 
 
 They have kept his body in a commercial freezer at his vast ashram in Punjab. 
 
 The judgement by Punjab and Haryana High Court ends a three-year-old dispute between the guru's disciples and Dalip Kumar Jha, who claims to be his son. 
 
 Mr Jha had sought permission to cremate the guru's body, in line with Hindu rituals. 
 
 In rejecting his plea, the court set aside a 2014 judgement that had ordered the guru's cremation after doctors confirmed him clinically dead. 
 
 Mr Jha's lawyer told AFP it was unclear whether the court had agreed with the sect's argument that its founder was alive. 
 
 Image copyright SHAMMI MEHRA/AFP/Getty Images Image caption Police were posted near the guru's ashram after a high court ordered his cremation in 2014 
 
 Mr Maharaj first established his sect in Jalandhar, Punjab, in 1983, to promote "self-awakening and global peace". 
 
 Over years, it attracted millions of followers across the world and amassed properties worth an estimated $120m (£92m) in India, the US, South America, Australia, the Middle East, and Europe. 
 
 The heavily-guarded 100-acre ashram in Punjab where the guru has been kept is just one sign of his vast financial assets. 
 
 Mr Jha has accused the guru's disciples of retaining his body as a ploy to keep control of his wealth. 
 
 Shortly after his death in 2014, the guru's spokesman Swami Vishalanand told the BBC: "He is not dead. Medical science does not understand things like yogic science. We will wait and watch. We are confident that he will come back." ||||| This article is over 1 year old 
 
 Court does not rule on whether Ashutosh Maharaj, who died of cardiac arrest in 2014, is in fact still alive and in a deep meditative state, as his followers believe 
 
 Indian court allows guru's disciples to continue preserving his body in freezer 
 
 An Indian court has allowed disciples of a spiritual guru to preserve his body in a freezer, as they believe he is in a deep state of meditation and will return to life. 
 
 
 
 Ashutosh Maharaj, founder of the multimillion-dollar sect, Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan (Divine Light Awakening Mission), apparently died of a cardiac arrest in January 2014. 
 
 But his followers insist he is in a deep spiritual state called samadhi and have controversially kept his body in a commercial freezer at his heavily guarded 100-acre ashram in the northern state of Punjab. 
 
 Want to live twice as long? Meditation might help | Oliver Burkeman Read more 
 
 On Wednesday, the Punjab and Haryana high court dismissed a three-year-old petition by Dalip Kumar Jha, who claims to be his son and who wanted his father’s body to cremate him, as per Hindu rituals. 
 
 Jha’s lawyer, SP Soi, told AFP that it was unclear whether the court approved the sect’s argument that Maharaj was alive. “But they dismissed our petition, which is disappointing, and we will challenge it in the supreme court,” said Soi. 
 
 The court, while rejecting their plea, set aside a 2014 judgment that had ordered Maharaj’s cremation after doctors confirmed him clinically dead. 
 
 Maharaj’s disciples had challenged the court’s cremation order, saying he had simply drifted into a deeper form of meditation, something he did often in sub-zero Himalayan temperatures. 
 
 The guru established the sect in Punjab’s Jalandhar city in 1983 to promote “self-awakening and global peace”, with millions of followers across the world and properties worth an estimated $120m in India, the US, South America, Australia, the Middle East and Europe. 
 
 Jha claims that the guru’s real name was Mahesh Kumar Jha, and he left his native village in eastern Bihar state in the late 1970s before founding the sect. 
 
 Jha and Maharaj’s former driver, Puran Singh, filed petitions in court soon after the guru’s death demanding a criminal investigation, and alleged the sect members were deliberately holding his body to retain control of his vast financial assets. 
 
 Maharaj is one of several gurus who in recent decades have built huge empires and command millions of followers, particularly in northern India. 
 
 For followers, gurus play an integral role in daily life, including a path to enlightenment. Followers offer spiritual devotion and donations to ashrams, temples and charity projects.
– Good news for followers of an Indian guru who fought to keep his body on ice: A court on Wednesday ruled that the remains of Ashutosh Maharaj can remain in a freezer, Agence-France Press reports. Punjabi followers of Maharaj dispute the idea that he died of a heart attack in 2014 and instead say he is in a deep meditative state called samadhi. His well-heeled sect—Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan, or Divine Light Awakening—counts millions of followers around the globe. A man claiming to be the Maharaj's son, Dalip Kumar Jha, petitioned the high court three years ago to allow him to cremate the body according to Hindi tradition. The ruling overturns a lower court that sided with Jha, ordering the body removed from the commercial freezer at his heavily guarded Punjabi ashram, per the BBC. Jha’s lawyer tells AFP it was unclear whether the court agreed Maharaj was still alive, but he said they will appeal to the supreme court. Disciples of Maharaj, who say he often meditated in sub-zero Himalayan temperatures, are waiting for him to return to life. But Jha and the guru's driver contend followers are using the body as a cover to keep control of Maharaj's substantial assets. The guru founded the sect in 1983 in a quest for "self-awakening and global peace" and along the way built an empire with properties worth $120 million in India, the US, and several other countries.