Supreme Court clarifies why it referred Sabarimala women's entry review to larger Bench

Supreme Court clarifies why it referred Sabarimala women's entry review to larger Bench

New Delhi: A nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court declared on Monday that superior courts have the powers to take up any cause to do complete justice.

This declaration came on a judgement, passed by the apex court, when it decided to examine larger issues of religious freedom across multiple faiths in connection with the Sabarimala temple women entry case.

The judgment was passed on February 10, but published on Monday. Due to the nationwide lockdown to contain the outbreak of coronavirus, the nine-judge bench could not take up the matter in March.

In November 2019, a five-judge bench headed by then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi framed "larger issues" concerning essential religious practices of various religions while passing an order on the review of the 2018 Sabarimala judgement, which allowed women of all age groups to enter and worship at the hill shrine in Kerala's Pathanamthitta district.

The bench led by Justice Gogoi clubbed other pending cases on subjects as varied as female genital mutilation among Dawoodi Bohras, entry of Parsi women who married inter-faith into the fire temple and entry of Muslim women into mosques and referred all these matters to a larger bench.

Chief Justice S A Bobde, who succeeded Justice Gogoi, set up a nine-judge Bench to conduct the hearing on the reference.

'Review petitions maintainable'

The bench, also comprising Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan, L Nageswara Rao, M M Shantanagoudar, S A Nazeer, R Subhash Reddy, B R Gavai and Surya Kant said the instant review petitions and the reference arising from the review petitions are maintainable.

The court said: "It is clear that there is no fetter in the exercise of the jurisdiction of this Court in review petitions of judgments or orders arising out of proceedings other than civil and criminal proceedings."

Several petitioners had argued that pure questions of law cannot be referred to a larger bench, and it was not possible for the apex court to decide the reference without any facts of a particular case before it. The court said it disagreed.

Questions on religious freedom

It had framed seven questions on the scope of religious freedom in various religions and made it clear that it was open to addition and deletion of issues framed.

"We do not agree. It is not necessary to refer to facts to decide pure questions of law, especially those pertaining to the interpretation of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, reference of pure questions of law has been answered by this court earlier. One such instance was when this Court was convinced that a larger bench has to discern the true scope and interpretation of Article 30 (1) of the Constitution," said the bench.

The top court noted that reference of questions of law can be made in any pending proceeding before it, including the instant review proceedings, to meet the ends of justice.

It said that being a superior Court of record, it is for this Court to consider whether any matter falls within its jurisdiction or not and unlike a court of limited jurisdiction, the superior Court of record is entitled to determine for itself questions about its own jurisdiction.

In September 2018, by a 4:1 majority verdict, the apex court had lifted the ban that prevented women and girls between the age of 10 and 50 years from entering the famous Ayyappa shrine in Sabarimala and held that the centuries-old Hindu religious practice was illegal and unconstitutional.

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