After SC's Sabarimala verdict, security tightened at Pamba base Camp

Post the 3:2 verdict by the 5-member Constitution bench of the Supreme Court which referred the Sabarimala review pleas to a 7-member larger bench, the security measures have been tightened at the Pamba base camp in Kerala, with close to 10,000 security personnel being posted on the route to Sabrimala. The temple for the devotees is set to open on November 16, late in the evening, and with the Supreme Court not giving a contrary order, its previous order allowing women of all ages to enter Sabarimala stands, while the review petitions have been kept pending.

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'High time that SC evolved a judicial policy'

CJI Ranjan Gogoi observed that both sections of the same religious groups had the right to propagate religious practices. Thereafter, he added that the issues arising in the present case and regarding Muslim women and Parsi women may be overlapping. Furthermore, he contended that it was high time that SC evolved a judicial policy to do justice to constitutional principles. However, Justice Nariman read out the dissenting judgment and stated that the issues of Muslim or Parsi women could not be clubbed with the Sabarimala matter as they were not before the court.

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The historic verdict of 2018

In a historic verdict last year, the Supreme Court ended the centuries-old practice and allowed women of all ages to enter Sabarimala temple. The 4:1 judgment of the Supreme Court upheld women's right to worship Lord Ayyappa in Sabarimala. While terming the ban on women in the age group of 10 to 51 as religious patriarchy, the then CJI Dipak Misra declared the discriminatory act as unconstitutional and violative of fundamental rights. The then CJI Misra while pronouncing the judgment also said that women can't be suppressed on the basis of biological aspects and that the same can't get a seal of legitimacy. Justice Indu Malhotra pronounced the dissenting judgment in the case and said it’s not up to the courts to decide if such religious practices should be struck down and that rationality has no place in matters of faith. 

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