The Supreme Court on Saturday issued a notice informing that review petitions challenging its September 28, 2018 judgment allowing women of menstruating age to enter the Sabarimala temple in Kerala is likely to come up before a Bench of seven judges in January 2020.
The notice does not specify the date of hearing or the composition of the Bench. It merely asks lawyers involved in the case to file four more complete set of paper-books containing documents and pleadings in the case.
On December 13, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad A. Bobde had said that the seven-judge Bench would be set up soon.
The CJI had advocated ‘patience’ to women of menstruating age fighting for their right to worship at Sabarimala temple.
Case track
The occasion arose when two women in their thirties, Bindhu Ammini and Rehana Fathima, approached the Supreme Court with a plea to direct the Kerala Police to provide them protection for their intended pilgrimage to the forest temple during the ongoing season.
They argued that the State’s refusal to provide them protection was in gross contempt of the September 2018 majority judgment of the Constitution Bench.
However, the CJI, had pointed to a subsequent judgment by a review Bench of five judges on November 14 which had referred to a seven-judge Bench the question of whether a woman’s right to worship was subservient to age-old religious custom.
The review Bench’s judgment chose not to relook at the September 2018 judgment — the very purpose for which it was formed.
On December 13, the CJI had said the situation was ‘explosive’ and the two women should wait till the seven-judge Bench took a call. Senior lawyers Indira Jaising and Colin Gonsalves, representing the two women, had said the court’s silence would send a wrong message to the country.
Minority opinion
Judge Rohinton F. Nariman, who was part of the majority Bench in the verdict allowing women’s entry, saw his opinion relegated to a minority on November 14.
Mr. Nariman, in a strongly worded opinion, had asked the Kerala Government to grant protection to the women pilgrims.
He had rejected the majority view to refer the review petitions to a larger Bench.
