SC/ST commission issues notice to Sabarimala temple's chief priest for performing cleansing ritual after two women enter shrine

The SC/ST commission has issued a notice to Sabarimala temple's chief tantri (priest) for performing Sudhi pooja (rituals of cleansing the temple after the entry of two women of menstruating age into Sabarimala temple on 2nd of January.

The tantri had closed the temple gates and ordered for cleansing the temple after Bindhu and Kanakadurga entered the Sabarimala temple on 2nd January.

The women had stepped into the hallowed precincts guarded by the police, more than three months after the apex court's historic judgment lifting the ban on the entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its "eternally celibate" deity.

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Forty-two-year-old Bindu, a college lecturer and CPI(ML) activist from Kozhikode district's Koyilandy, and Kanakadurga, 44, a civil supplies department employee from Angadipuram in Malappuram had petitioned the Supreme Court regarding the matter of entry for women i Sabarimala.

One of their pleas had sought directions declaring all authorities not to conduct the rite of purification or to shut the temple on account of any woman of the age of 10-50 having entered the temple.

It had said that the purification ritual is representative of a cleansing ceremony, signifying the petitioners were impure, which is violative of their dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution.

READ | 36-years-old Kerala Woman Activist Dyed Her Hair Grey, Claims She Entered Sabarimala Temple

On September 28 last year, a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in a 4:1 verdict paved the way for entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple, saying the ban amounted to gender discrimination.

The top court has said it may not start hearing pleas seeking a review of the Sabarimala verdict from January 22 as one of the judges was on medical leave.

Earlier, the apex court had decided to hear in open court the review petitions against the verdict. Besides Justice Indu Malhotra and the CJI, justices R F Nariman, A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud are part of the five-judge constitution bench.

There are around 48 petitions seeking review of the judgment and they were filed following violent protests in favour and against the verdict.