A view of Sabarimala Ayyappa temple in Kerala.
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu
A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court has commenced the ultimate hearing on petitions relating to discrimination in opposition to women at non secular locations, together with Sabarimala Temple, and on the ambit and scope of non secular freedom practised by a number of faiths.
The Bench is ready to specifiically look into Articles 25 and 26 that cope with freedom of faith and non secular denomination.
In the previous hearing on Tuesday (April 7, 2026), Solicitor General Tushar Mehta showing for Centre mentioned proscribing a selected gender inside a specifc age group from coming into a spot of worship is just not discrimination.
The Constitution Bench comprised Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices B.V. Nagarathna, M.M. Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, Augustine George Masih, Prasanna B. Varale, R. Mahadevan and Joymalya Bagchi.
Read: Women cannot be seen as ‘untouchables’ for three days a month: Justice Nagarathna in Sabarimala case
In September 2018, a five-judge Constitution bench, by a 4:1 majority verdict, had lifted the ban that prevented women of menstruating age from coming into the Ayyappa shrine at Sabarimala in Kerala and held that the centuries-old Hindu non secular observe was unlawful and unconstitutional.
However, in 2019, one other five-judge bench headed by the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi, referred the problem of discrimination in opposition to women at numerous locations of worship to a bigger bench.
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