The Center on Monday urged the Supreme Court to uphold restrictions on entry of women of menstruating age into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, arguing that the issue falls squarely within the sphere of religious faith and communal autonomy and falls outside the scope of judicial review.
Notably, the government also urged the nine-judge panel to declare that the law and reasoning in the 2018 Joseph Schein ruling, which struck down the crime of adultery, was not good law, arguing that the ruling relied on a broad and subjective application of “constitutional morality” – what the Center described as “a vague, judicially evolving and ill-defined concept.”
In detailed written submissions submitted ahead of the hearing on Tuesday, the Union government supported the review petitions against the 2018 ruling that opened the temple to women of all ages. She emphasized that questions regarding who may enter a place of worship are not aspects of gender discrimination but are rooted in religious practice, belief and the specific character of the deity.
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The submissions, filed through Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, cautioned the bench against adopting review criteria that evaluate religious practices on grounds such as “rationality,” “novelty” or “scientific defensibility.” She said such a practice could amount to courts replacing their philosophical views with internal understandings of religion.
“An inquiry into whether a practice is rational, acceptable to judicial sensitivities, or consistent with transformative constitutional doctrines does not constitute constitutional review,” the submissions said, adding that judges are not trained or institutionally equipped to interpret religious texts or adjudicate on theological questions.
The Supreme Court had on April 4 informed the formation of a nine-judge bench to hear the much-awaited Sabarimala review, bringing to life a constitutional controversy that had been in cold storage for six years and could reshape the court’s approach in dealing with religious rights disputes. The bench will include Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, and Justices PV Nagarathna, MM Sundresh, Ashanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, AG Masih, R Mahadevan, Prasanna P Varali and Joymalia Bagchi.
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What is at stake before the court is not just the legality of the Sabarimala restriction, but also a broader constitutional calculation about the limits of judicial review in religious matters. The court was tasked with answering seven broad questions, including the scope of the “essential religious practices” doctrine, the interaction between articles 25 and 26, and the extent to which courts can consider public interest challenges to religious customs by those outside the religion. The outcome is expected to shape the contours of constitutional morality, communal autonomy, and gender equality, while also impacting a range of interconnected conflicts, from women’s access to mosques and dargahs to the rights of religious communities to determine their own practices without judicial interference.
In response to judicial scrutiny of what constitutes an “essential religious practice,” the center argued in its briefs that the importance of the practice should be determined by the denomination itself, based on its understanding of scripture and tradition, not by the courts. She said that faith and belief are freedoms protected by the Constitution and cannot be subjected to judicial balance unless they conflict with public order, health, morals, or other basic rights.
The government also made a broader doctrinal claim: that God’s attributes are not open to judicial review. It stated that the Sabarimala temple is dedicated to Lord Ayyappan in the form of Naisthika Brahmachari (eternal celibate), and that the restrictions on entry of women of child-bearing age are closely linked to the preservation of that persona.
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It claimed that courts could not “fix” or reinterpret the nature of God by declaring certain attributes non-essential or irrational. The legal personality of God, recognized in law, requires courts to accept the sect’s understanding of those attributes as conclusive. Any attempt to separate “essential” from “nonessential” aspects of a deity’s character would effectively require a court to declare devotees wrong about their faith—a role that the Constitution does not envision for judicial power.
The submissions also criticized the reasoning adopted by a five-judge bench in 2018, which examined whether the celibate nature of the Sabarimala deity was necessary for the practice. According to the Center, such an approach impermissibly places the courts in the position of theological arbitrators.
An important element of the Center’s argument is its criticism of the doctrine of “constitutional morality,” which it describes as a vague, judicially evolving concept with no clear textual basis in the Constitution.
The government warned that relying on constitutional morality to invalidate religious practices risked introducing subjective standards into the adjudication of cases, effectively allowing courts to reshape religious traditions on the basis of evolving judicial perceptions. He argued that this essentially amounted to amending the Constitution through judicial interpretation rather than through the prescribed constitutional process.
By urging the court to reject this reasoning, the Center sought to reset the balance between individual rights and religious freedom that prioritizes sectarian independence in religious matters.
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In a more comprehensive submission, the Center urged the court to declare that the five-judge bench’s ruling in Joseph Shine v. Union of India (2018), which struck down the offense of adultery, is not good law. The adultery verdict was delivered by a bench comprising CJI Dipak Misra and Justices RF Nariman, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra.
In this context, the Center took a specific exception to what it described as reliance on non-judicial or subjective materials in constitutional jurisprudence, and urged the court to clarify that binding judicial rulings must rely strictly on the constitutional text, precedents and established legal principles.
Invoking the general powers of the Supreme Court and positioning it as a court of record under Articles 129 and 141, the submissions say that rulings cannot be influenced by individual opinions expressed outside the courtroom, whether in academic writings, legal journals or informal platforms such as lectures and podcasts. He asserted that such articles reflect personal and evolving views rather than settled law, and allowing them to shape constitutional interpretation risks introducing subjectivity into what should remain a principled and institutional practice.
While the Sabarimala reference is primarily about religious liberty, Joseph Schein’s challenge to the Center is linked to his broader critique of constitutional morality. She said that the reasoning in this case relied heavily on abstract concepts of autonomy and morality that are not grounded in constitutional text, and that such an approach has broader implications for how courts deal with social and religious norms.
The Centre’s contributions also responded to the seven questions in the 2019 Reference Order, which turned the Sabarimala dispute into a far-reaching constitutional inquiry. These include the scope of judicial review of religious practices, the features of basic religious practices, and the meaning and limits of constitutional morality.
