The Travancore Devaswom Board told the Supreme Court of India that religion consists of beliefs and practices followed by a community sharing a broadly common identity and said the court should not determine validity of those religious beliefs.
The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) which oversees the historic Sabarimala temple in Kerala told the Supreme Court that religion consists of the beliefs and practices followed by a community with a broadly shared identity, and that the court should not decide whether those beliefs are valid.
A nine-judge Constitution bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant heard the argument from the TDB, a statutory autonomous body managing more than 1,000 temples across South India.
The board said that it is the community’s own (subjective) understanding of its beliefs and practices that must be considered, and that the court is expected to accept those beliefs rather than evaluate them.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the TDB, stated,
“Religion is a set of beliefs and practices followed by a group/sect/denomination with a broadly similar identity. While Article 25 clearly vests in an individual the right to profess, practice and propagate religion, such individual rights cannot be allowed to extend to an area which intrudes upon the mass of individual rights of all other adherents of that religion or denomination.”
The bench also included Justices BV Nagarathna, MM Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, Augustine George Masih, Prasanna B Varale, R Mahadevan, and Joymalya Bagchi.
Singhvi further argued that it is not permissible to add to, modify, or subtract from the express wording of the Constitution’s text, and that any additional restriction based on the idea of “essentiality,” introduced by some judgments, is therefore not acceptable.
On the fourth day of the hearing, Singhvi submitted that Article 25 guarantees every person freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice, and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality, health, and other provisions contained in Part III of the Constitution.