Legal Dateline
1990- A petition was filed before the Kerala High Court seeking a ban on entry of women inside the Sabarimala temple.
1991- The Kerala High Court had upheld the restrictions on women of a certain age for entry inside the holy shrine of Lord Ayyappa.
| The Sabarimala temple has also been in the midst of a controversy over the entry of women of reproductive age into the temple. The temple rules, which disallowed women aged 10-50 years from entering the temple, were set aside by the top court. The temple management has, however, refused women entry into the temple and sought a review of the ruling. That is pending before the top court. |
2006– A petition was filed in the Supreme Court by the Indian Young Lawyers Association seeking entry of women between 10 to 50 years.
2008– The matter was referred to a three-judge bench.
January 2016– The court had questioned the ban, saying this cannot be done under the Constitution.
2017– The Supreme Court referred the matter to the Constitution bench.
September 2018– A five-judge bench of Supreme Court allowed the entry of women of all ages in the revered shrine (a decision by 4:1 majority). The state government sought time to implement the verdict, however even after the entry was allowed a large number of followers camped outside the shrine to prevent the entry of women of all ages.
2019: Supreme Court said that restrictions on women in religious places were not limited to Sabarimala alone and was prevalent in other religions as well. The court referred all review pleas to a larger seven-judge bench seeking review of its 2018 ruling.
The majority led by then CJI Gogoi kept more than 50 review petitions pending until the outcome of proceedings before a 7-judge Constitution Bench to be constituted. The 7-judge bench will also decide if the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Rules, 1965, governs the Sabarimala temple or whether all sides must be given an opportunity to be heard again.
| Article 137 of the Constitution of India, 1950, provides that subject to provisions of any law and rules made under Article 145, the Supreme Court has the power to review any judgment pronounced or order made by it. Under Supreme Court Rules, 1966 such a petition is to be filed within thirty days from the date of judgment or order and as far as practicable; it is to be circulated, without oral arguments, to the same Bench of Judges who delivered the judgment or order sought to be reviewed. |
January 6, 2020: A nine-judge Constitution bench of Supreme Court was to hear from January 13, the issue of allowing women and girls of all ages to enter Kerala’s Sabarimala temple along with other legal issues of alleged discrimination against Muslim and Parsi women.
February 8, 2020: The Supreme Court ordered an inventory of the ornaments of Lord Ayyappa in Sabarimala temple, just as it had done in the case of the deity of Padmanabhaswamy temple in 2011. The probe will be headed by retired high court judge CN Ramachandran Nair. The Sabarimala temple is at the centre of a controversy over the custody of the Lord’s ornaments as well, with opposing faction of the royal Pandalam family staking claim over them.
February 10, 2020: A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde framed seven questions to be heard by a nine-judge Constitutional Bench on the issue relating to Freedom of religion under the Constitution and Faith. The court is planning to hear on day to day basis 7 questions framed on the scope of religious freedom in various religion from February 17, 2020. The nine-judge bench will deal with the right to freedom of religion guaranteed under the Constitution of India in Article 25 and its interplay in various religious denominations.
The composition of the Nine Judge Bench
The nine-judge bench also comprising Chief Justice of India, Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan, L Nageswara Rao, M M Shantanagoudar, S A Nazeer, R Subhash Reddy, B R Gavai and Surya Kant. The larger bench would hear the issues which were referred by 5 judge Constitution bench headed by then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. The five-judge bench by a majority of 3:2 has referred to the larger bench the issue of discrimination of women at various religious places.
Issues
- The larger bench is also hearing other referred issues- entry of Muslim women into mosques and dargahs; the issue of Parsi women married to a non-Parsi being barred from the holy fireplace of an Agiary; the practice of female genital mutilation amongst Dawoodi Bohras.
- The court will also look into the meaning of word sections of Hindu occurring in article 25 (2) (b) of the Constitution.
- The Supreme Court will also deal with the power of a person, who does not belong to a particular religion or sect of a religion, to question the religious beliefs of that religion by filing a PIL.
