San Francisco, USA - A U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a California county acted improperly in blocking a Sikh group from building a temple in a residential or agricultural area.
A county planning board twice denied the Guru Nanak Sikh Society of Yuba City, north of the state capital Sacramento, permission to build a Sikh temple on what was zoned as agricultural or residential land.
In upholding a lower court ruling on the dispute, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals cited a 1993 U.S. law that bars substantial burdens to the exercise of religion and found that Sutter County officials acted improperly.
"Because the county's actions have to a significantly great extent lessened the prospect of Guru Nanak being able to construct a temple in the future, the county has imposed a substantial burden on Guru Nanak's religious exercise," Judge Carlos Bea wrote for a three-member panel.
"We also decide that the County did not assert, much less prove, compelling interests for its action."