New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the very foundation of the 2006 public interest litigation (PIL) that led to the landmark judgment in 2018 that allowed entry of women of all ages into Kerala’s Sabarimala temple.
A nine-judge constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, which has been hearing a batch of matters related to the Sabarimala case review, observed that the original petition “ought not to have been entertained at all” and that the material on record should have been “thrown in the dustbin”.
Justice B V Nagarathna even said that PILs had increasingly become “private interest litigation, publicity interest litigation, paisa interest litigation, and political interest litigation.”
The Constitution bench – also comprising Justices MM Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, AG Masih, R Mahadevan, Prasanna B Varale and Joymalya Bagchi – repeatedly questioned advocate RP Gupta who has been appearing for the Indian Young Lawyers’ Association (IALA), which had filed the original petition challenging the exclusion of women of menstruating age from the temple.
The bench said that the court had entertained the petition on the basis of material that did not merit judicial consideration. “We entertained the PIL based on these kinds of documents, which should have been thrown in the dustbin outright,” the CJI remarked, referring to newspaper reports and unverified material.
Justice Nagarathna said that rather than “ensuring security to the petitioners, the court could have ensured that there was no need for a security threat at all by not entertaining this petition”. Justice Nagarathna was referring to a 2016 court order which ensured security of the officer-bearers of the association and also said that the court would proceed with the matter even if the association wanted to withdraw its plea, HT reported.
Justice Sundresh made the point that the case reflected an “abuse of the process of law”.
Questioning the intent of the petitioners, the CJI asked, “Why have you filed this PIL? Are you the chief priest of the country?”
Advocate Gupta argued that religion has both personal and institutional dimensions, and denial of entry into places of worship could amount to a violation of the fundamental right to practise religion under Articles 25 and 26.
In response, the Constitutional bench expressed reservations about permitting individuals without faith in a particular deity to assert a right of entry. “The ones who have faith in the deity will perform all that is needed… someone who says they will break all norms cannot be encouraged,” said Justice Nagarathna.
It was the 11th days of hearing in the Sabarimala temple proceedings.
A five-judge bench in 2018 struck down centuries-old practice barring women aged 10 to 50 from entering the Sabarimala temple by a 4:1 majority.
