The Supreme Court on Wednesday resumed hearing of the matter of entry of women to the famous Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala and said that ‘denying entry for women is unconstitutional.’
Moving a step closer towards the victory of equal right to pray, the Bench questioned the nexus between age and menstruation and asked if notification leave out a 9-year-old or a 53-year-old who could be menstruating?
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Justice DY Chandrachud observed,“Woman is a creation of God. Basing exclusion on the basis of mensuration is absurd. Notification excluding women aged between 10 and 50 is arbitrary.”
“Your (intervener) right to pray to be a woman, is equal to that of a man and it is not dependent on a law to enable you to do that,” observes Justice DY Chandrachud. The Supreme Court also pulled up Temple authorities and asked them ‘on what basis they deny the entry?’
“On what basis you (temple authorities) deny the entry. It is against the Constitutional mandate. Once you open it for the public, anybody can go,” observes the Chief Justice of India.
Meanwhile, the State of Kerala also supported women entry in Sabarimala. The government stated that they want entry of women of all ages in the Sabarimala temple, however, Kerala government had supported the ban in 2017 and now took a 360 degree by changing their stand before the Supreme Court.
Previously, the Supreme Court commenced its hearing on the contentious issue relating to the ban on entry of women between 10 and 50 years of age in Kerala’s historic Sabarimala temple.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra asked the counsel for petitioners Indian Young Lawyers Association and others to limit their arguments on the questions of reference made by a three-judge bench of apex court last year.
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The bench also comprising justices R F Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra fixed the time limit for the counsel for petitioners and asked them to try to wrap up their arguments within the fixed time limit.
Advocate RP Gupta commenced the hearing for the petitioners and referred to the history of the temple. “You should not go into unnecessary things and counsel should limit their arguments to the issues referred to Constitution bench,” the bench said.