Sabarimala Thantri Mandalam flays government stance on women’s entry in temple.A constitution bench of Supreme Court will pronounce its verdict on a batch of pleas seeking permission for women aged between 10 and 50 to enter the 800-year old Sabarimala temple in Kerala.
A five-judge bench consisting of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice RF Nariman, Justice AM Khanwilkar, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Indu Malhotra had reserved the judgment on August 1.
The Indian Young Lawyers Association was the first to file a plea in 2006 in the Supreme Court seeking scrapping of the temple law that restricted women’s entry. After about a decade, the apex court took up the case for hearing in January 2016.
The SC will consider whether the exclusion of women (between the 10-50 age group) amounts to “discrimination” and is therefore against the Constitution. The top court will also examine if excluding these women is an “essential religious practice” under Article 25 (which guarantees right to freedom of religion) of the statute and if a religious body can assert a claim in this regard under the pretext of its right to manage its own affairs.
