The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the merits of a 2006 public interest litigation that culminated in its landmark 2018 ruling allowing entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, observing that the petition “should never have been admitted” and the recorded material should have been “thrown in the dustbin”.
A nine-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, and comprising Justices B V Nagrathna, M M Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, A G Masih, R Mahadevan, Prasanna B Varali and Joymalia Bagchi, made these observations while hearing a host of issues arising out of the Sabarimala review proceedings and associated questions on the scope of religious freedom.
The court’s remarks came during arguments by senior advocate R B Gupta, representing the Indian Young Lawyers Association (IALA), which had filed the original petition challenging the exclusion of women of menstruating age from the hill shrine.
Taking strong exception to the PIL basis, the court said the court had accepted the petition on the basis of materials that did not merit judicial consideration. “We filed the PIL based on this type of document, which should have been thrown in the trash immediately,” the international investigation committee noted, referring to the reliance on press reports and unverified materials.
Justice Nagaratna was equally direct, stating that “instead of ensuring security for the petitioners, the court could have ensured that there was no need for a security threat at all by not considering this petition.” She was referring to an order passed by the court in 2016, which not only ensured the security of the association’s officials, including its president Naushad Ali, but also said that the court would go ahead with the order even if the association wanted to withdraw its petition. Judge Sandrich added that the case reflects an “abuse of due process.”
In a broader critique of the PIL’s jurisdiction, the bench warned that public interest litigation, once seen as a tool to enhance access to justice, was increasingly being misused. “Public interest litigations have now become private litigation, publicity litigation, and political interest litigation,” Justice Nagaratna observed, stressing the need for courts to remain vigilant against motivated or propaganda-driven petitions.
“Are you the high priest of the country?”
The bench also questioned the location and intention of the petitioners. “Why did you introduce this law? Are you the High Priest of the country?” the CJI asked pointedly, while Justice Nagarathna wondered whether the Bar Association should be involved in such cases instead of focusing on the welfare of the Bar Association and young practitioners.
During the exchange, Gupta argued for the continuance of the petition, arguing that religion has both personal and institutional dimensions, and that denial of entry to places of worship could amount to violation of the fundamental right to practice religion under Articles 25 and 26. The right to worship was said to include access to public religious institutions, regardless of one’s faith.
However, the authority expressed reservations about allowing individuals who do not believe in a particular god to assert the right of entry. “Those who believe in God will do whatever is required… Anyone who says he will violate all norms cannot be encouraged,” Justice Nagaratna said, expressing the court’s concern about the limits of religious freedom claims.
Procedures are still ongoing
The Supreme Court’s ongoing proceedings in the reference stem from the court’s 2018 ruling in Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala, where a five-judge bench, by a 4:1 majority, struck down the centuries-old practice of barring women between the ages of 10 and 50 from entering the Sabarimala temple. The ruling sparked widespread protests and a series of review petitions.
In 2019, while considering those review applications, the Court referred a range of broader constitutional questions to a larger bench without conclusively deciding the validity of the 2018 ruling. These questions relate to the interplay between equality and religious liberty, the scope of the doctrine of fundamental religious practices, and the extent to which courts can intervene in matters of faith.
The nine-judge panel is now examining these cases, with their implications extending beyond Sabarimala to disputes involving women’s interfaith access to religious spaces, excommunication practices, and the regulation of religious customs.
