A unique defence: ‘I’ve fallen under

Temple boss Rajvinder Singh admits he lied to Immigration, but says he was following the orders of his 82-year-old spiritual guru. Steve Kilgallon reports.

Everyone describes him as articulate, well-educated, intelligent. He ran daycare centres, was a school trustee, led a multi-million dollar trust, then worked as a police data analyst. He turned up with 17 letters of commendation, one from National MP Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi.

So why was Rajvinder Singh in the Manukau District Court dock, admitting that he lied, over and over again, to Immigration New Zealand (INZ) to bring a Sikh priest into the country on a fake passport?

Well, he had a unique defence. Rajvinder’s argument was that he’d fallen under the spell of his spiritual leader, the 81-year-old Amar Singh, or to his followers, Sant Baba Amar Singh Ji (‘‘Sant’’ roughly transliterates to Saint, and Baba Ji is an honorific of respect).

Amar, he said, had controlled his every move – and when he dared to speak back, he was physically assaulted, one time with a telephone.

Amar runs a wealthy worldwide network of temple trusts – including the one in Manurewa, South Auckland, which boasts net assets of more than $10m, including seven rental properties, a kindergarten and the giant, golddomed temple on Great South Rd.

From 2014 to 2018, Rajvinder was the Manurewa temple’s fulltime manager. His family were all deeply involved in Amar Singh’s branch of Sikhism, and he was Amar’s trusted deputy here (Amar himself was rarely in New Zealand, instead shuffling between Australia and India).

One of Rajvinder’s jobs was to complete immigration paperwork: between 2006 and 2021, the temple had 338 temporary and residency visas approved (and 60 declined). He once wrote to INZ that the temple ‘‘had a very clear record with Immigration NZ for a long time now’’.

Among those he applied for was a young Punjabi student, Tarsem Singh, who had volunteered daily at the temple in 2010-11, and wanted to return to New Zealand. But his application was denied.

In 2013, Rajvinder applied for Tarsem again: only this time, Tarsem had a new passport, and now his name was Simranjit Singh, and his father was one Amar Singh. He was granted a four-month sponsored religious worker visa to be an assistant priest at the temple.

Rajvinder knew Simranjit was Tarsem. ‘‘But,’’ he said, ‘‘Whatever Baba Ji does is always the right thing. That’s how we understood it…. Today, looking back at it, I have a lot of questions.’’

And he knew the truth each of the seven times he applied for visas on Tarsem’s behalf, culminating in the man gaining residency in 2017. Then INZ executed a search warrant at Tarsem’s Manurewa home in December 2020, and seized the passport. And Tarsem told his story to Stuff, and the whole gig was up.

Rajvinder had left the temple by then, back in 2018, along with two of the temple trustees, Gurpreet Singh Gill and Tarsem Singh (a different Tarsem Singh), all uncomfortable with the chairman’s management style.

In the witness box, trustee Tarsem Singh said he’d witnessed the telephone attack, but done nothing about it. ‘‘Baba is like a God for us at that time, we trust him a lot,’’ he said. ‘‘We didn’t have our own opinions and our own decisions.’’ He still attended the temple.

Gill said he too had witnessed assaults on Rajvinder, but ‘‘because we were so scared… and we respect him so much, we didn’t say anything. And we were under pressure.’’ Gill too still attended the same temple.

The lawyer for INZ, Tim Gray, aimed for incredulity. ‘‘I suggest to you, it’s not plausible that a man in his 80s in control of a large religious organisation was in charge of everyone employed at a temple in Manurewa.’’

Gill demurred: ‘‘They teach us to follow orders… whatever he said, we did.’’

At this, Judge Soana Moala interjected. Would that extend even to killing someone?

‘‘Under pressure, you can do anything.’’