A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court will take up a clutch of review petitions on the matter of women’s entry into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala on January 13, 2020.
The notice, issued by the Officer on Special Duty (Listing), however, does not specify the names of the judges who will hear the petitions clubbed under the name of Kantaru Rajeevaru v Indian Young Lawyers Associations.
By a 3:2 judgment of the five-judge bench, led by the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi on November 13, 2019, the questions of women’s temple entry and a host of other related questions in the Sabarimala review petitions had been referred to a larger bench, comprising not less than seven judges.
The September 2018 verdict in the Sabarimala case had allowed women’s entry into the Ayappa temple. Bindu Ammini and Rehna Fathima’s petitions seeking protection to women for such entry were diffused by CJI SA Bobde, stating that the 2018 verdict was not the last word in view of the pending review petitions, and hence an interim order based on the 2018 verdict was not called for.
The hearings before the nine-judge bench are going to be even more keenly watched as the Supreme Court is also hearing petitions that based their grounds on the 2018 verdict of the Sabarimala case. The female genital mutilation case and the claim of Muslim women’s entry to mosques/dargahs were filed after the Supreme Court opened Sabarimala temple’s gates to women in their reproductive ages.
Read Supreme Court Notice here
— India Legal Bureau