Today, On 14th May, The Supreme Court has now reserved its judgment in the long-pending Sabarimala reference after an intensive 16-day hearing before a nine-judge Bench. Led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, the Bench reconsidered constitutional questions tied to the 2018 ruling.
The Supreme Court reserved its judgment in the long-pending Sabarimala reference after 16 days of hearings before a nine-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant.
The hearings, which started on April 7, revisited key constitutional issues arising from the court’s 2018 decision that allowed women of all age groups to enter the Sabarimala Temple shrine.
In 2018, the court by a 4:1 majority set aside the traditional restriction barring women of menstruating age from the hill shrine. Later, in November 2019, while considering review petitions, the Supreme Court referred broader constitutional questions to a larger Bench rather than resolving the dispute finally.
The reference Bench includes CJI Kant and Justices BV Nagarathna, MM Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, Augustine George Masih, Prasanna B Varale, R Mahadevan, and Joymalya Bagchi.
The cases include matters related to the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, as well as questions about religious freedom practiced by multiple faiths, including Dawoodi Bohras.
The ruling is expected to affect several pending cases involving religious freedom, including questions about the entry of Muslim women into dargahs and mosques, excommunication practices in the Parsi and Dawoodi Bohra communities, and issues related to female genital mutilation.
During the rejoinder submissions, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi argued that excommunication in the Parsi community had effectively stopped decades ago.
He told the Bench, adding that there was no arbitrary or diabolical authority that could still threaten such action,
“In the last seventy-five years, there has in fact been no excommunication at all,”
Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium contended that Articles 25 and 26 function in distinct constitutional spheres, and that a clash between individual rights and denominational rights does not necessarily follow.
Differentiating religion from religious denomination, he submitted,
“The two expressions carry distinct constitutional meanings,”
He also opposed what he described as an emerging hierarchy among fundamental rights, disagreeing with certain remarks made by former CJI DY Chandrachud in the electoral bonds case.
During the proceedings, Justice Joymalya Bagchi noted that issues involving faith and denomination are definitely justiciable to the extent of judicial review, though not in matters that require value-based judgments.
Justice Prasanna B Varale remarked that courts cannot always take a hands-off approach in denominational disputes.
Senior Advocate Rajeev Dhavan emphasized that Articles 26 and 29 are primarily group rights, and cautioned against narrowing constitutional interpretation to individual rights alone.
Referring to the Sabarimala ruling, he argued that once a practice was found to be non-essential, the claimants were effectively treated as not holding Article 25 rights.
He further criticised the use of constitutional morality as a standalone basis to strike down laws.
Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi objected to describing Hinduism only as a way of life, asserting that it is also a religious philosophy and a deeply evolved social structure.
He argued that Articles 25 and 26 amount to essentially collective rights.
Senior Advocate K Parameshwar urged the Bench not to exclude other fundamental rights while interpreting Articles 25 and 26. He criticized the Essential Religious Practices doctrine as deeply elitist, and argued that spiritual pursuits are connected to identity protected under Article 21.
At the hearing, CJI Surya Kant stressed the court’s constitutional role, stating,
“The constitutional court cannot give up its responsibility. You cannot surrender that.”
Earlier, the Supreme Court had noted that if individuals begin challenging every religious practice or aspect of religion before the constitutional courts, it would lead to hundreds of petitions, and every religion could potentially break.
A five-judge Constitution Bench previously lifted a ban that had restricted women aged between 10 and 50 from entering the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple.
It did so in a 4:1 verdict delivered in September 2018, holding that the centuries-old Hindu religious practice was illegal and unconstitutional.