New Delhi: A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court will hear on Wednesday a batch of petitions seeking review of the September 28, 2018, verdict allowing women of all ages to visit the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple in Kerala.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Rohinton Nariman, A.M. Kanwil-kar, D.Y. Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra, will hear the petitions. On Tuesday, four women filed applications seeking to intervene in support of the judgment. Two of the applica-nts — Bindu and Kanaka Durga — had entered the temple on January 2. Some contempt petitions have also been filed.
Ms Bindu, who teaches law at Kannur University School of Legal Studies, said that she has intense desire to pay her respects to “Dharma Shastha”, who is worshipped as Lord Ayyappa. Reshma Nishant and Shanila Satheesh have filed the other plea.
The apex court, by a maj-ority of 4:1, had held den-ial of entry of women only on the ground they are menstruating violates Ar-ticle 14 of the Constituti-on, namely right to equality. The rule brought by Kerala in 1965 denying en-try of women in the age group of 10 to 50 violated the right of women to worship.
Significantly, the lone woman in the bench, Justice Indu Malhotra, was the sole dissenter to the majority judgment.
Kanaka Durga said that she is a believer of all Hindu gods and narrated the discriminatory practises she had to face during menstrual period, such as isolating her in another room, not permitting her to touch the well or draw water from it, etc.
The petition narrated their attempt to enter temple on December 24, 2018, which got foiled due to protests. Later, on January 2, they entered the temple with police assistance. They said that the judgment needs no interference, as it does not suffer from any patent error.
A batch of review petitions filed by Nair Service Society and others contended that the restriction based on age of a female is not a restriction, which amounts to discrimination on the ground of “only” of sex.
