SC refers Sabarimala temple's ban on women to Constitution Bench

New Delhi, Oct 13: The Supreme Court on Friday referred to a Constitution Bench the question whether a ban on the entry of women in the age group 10-50 years in Kerala’s Sabarimala temple on grounds of biological factors was discrimitory and violative of the Constitution’s Articles 14, 15 and 17. Article 14 guarantees right to equality, Article 15 prohibits discrimition on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, and Article 17 abolishes untouchability and forbids it practice.

Asking whether the practice of excluding such women constitutes an “essential religious practice” under Article 25, the court in another question asked “whether a religious institution can assert a claim in that regard under the umbrella of right to mage its own affairs in the matters of religion?”

In another poser, the court has asked whether “Ayyappa Temple has a denomitiol character” and if it was permissible for religious denomition maged by a statutory board and is funded by the Kerala and Tamil du governments to indulge in practices “violating the constitutiol principles/morality embedded in Articles 14, 15(3), 39(a) and 51-A(e)a of the constitution”. (IANS)