Sabarimala verdict: 5-judge SC bench commences hearing on review petition

Four women have moved the Supreme Court seeking to intervene as parties in support of its last September's historic judgment which allowed women of all age groups into Sabarimala temple in Kerala.

The Supreme Court Wednesday commenced hearing on pleas seeking review of its verdict which had allowed women of all ages entry into Kerala's Sabarimala temple.

Senior advocate K Prasaran, appearing for Nair Service Society, opened the arguments before a five-judge bench and sought setting aside of the verdict.

The review petitions are being heard by a Constitution bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi and justices R F Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra.

There are 64 cases being heard in total, out of which some are review petitions and some transfer petitions.

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

Four intervenors

Four women have moved the Supreme Court seeking to intervene as parties in support of its last September's historic judgment which allowed women of all age groups into Sabarimala temple in Kerala.

The apex court is all set to hear the review petitions against the verdict from Wednesday.

Reshma C V, Shanila, Bindu A and Kanakadurga, hailing from Kerala, have filed applications seeking to be heard as intervenors. They are supporting the verdict.

Of the four, Bindu and Kanakadurga, aged 44 and 42, were the first to have stepped into the hallowed precincts after the top court's historic judgement lifted the ban on entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa, its eternally celibate deity.

The other two applicants -- 33-year-old Reshma and 29-year-old Shanila, had twice attempted to enter the temple, first on January 15 and again on January 19. However, they were heckled and prevented by some self proclaimed devotees after which they had to discontinue.

"There are thousands of women waiting for Darshan at Sabarimala and are awaiting the final outcome of the review petitions, when this court would be pleased to hear and finally decide. The applicants may be permitted to intervene and make their submissions before this court when the Review Petitions are heard by this court, in order to oppose the Reviews," said Reshma and Shanila in their application.

Business Standard

No place for women: Sabarimala a blot on Kerala's progressive state status

The Sabarimala protests are a blot on the progressive state whose highest literacy has not translated to good education.

Business Standard : From the time I can remember my grandmother, only one image of her comes to my mind – of a widow with a tonsured head, wrapped on top by a dull brown cotton saree worn in traditional style, a blank forehead without the usual red vermilion or ‘kumkum’, bare neck, empty ears and hands unadorned and shorn off all jewellery. Her ankles and feet were bare too – without the traditional anklets or silver rings worn on the toes of both feet – the symbol of married women.

A very vivid story of my grandmother is etched in my memory. I had gone to Melkote, the idyllic temple town near Mysore – where she lived with one of her sons, my maternal uncle – during my school summer holidays from Gorur, where I studied in the local government Kannada medium school.

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In those days, a favourite vacation was being taken to your mother’s birth place to be with your grandmother, carefree and pampered. I must have been eight or nine. My older sister was by my side. I’m not sure what triggered this poignant episode that my grandmother recounted, but it was heart rending. Her eyes had welled up in tears, and with dreamy eyes into her distant past she narrated this event.

She was married off as a child-bride of 13 to a boy – also young, just 16 – who was studying to be a Sanskrit pundit and training to become a purohit (priest) in Melkote, a Srivaishnavite pilgrim centre founded by Ramanuja a thousand years ago. When she was in her late thirties her husband took ill and died. She had three children – two boys and a girl, my mother. They were all in their teens and in school.

She was in total shock and grief. But what she remembered with unbearable pain was the day the various ceremonies and rituals were performed in public in the presence of relatives and other locals of the village, the manner her widowhood was formalised and announced. She was seated on the floor amid two priests, who surrounded by many relatives, chanted various mantras.(Sabarimala Temple)

First they removed all her ornaments, including her mangalasutra – the holy necklace that her husband had tied around her neck on the day of her wedding – then they smashed the glass bangles on her wrists contemptuously, removed the rings in her ear lobes and her toes, unfastened the anklets, erased her vermillion roughly even as she shook and sobbed inconsolably and was drowning in her sorrow.

A village barber was ready and waiting with his sharpened blades who was ushered in to perform the ritual of tonsuring her head. As she was bent , broken in sorrow, the barber shaved her and she recalled with tears how her copious and luxuriant tresses fell to the ground. The chanting continued. She was dizzy and overwhelmed by the events. Then she was led to the bath and after her relatives poured water on her and scrubbed her, she was given a plain brown cotton saree which became her prison uniform for the rest of her life... Read More