Supreme Court frames 7 posers on gender prejudice in religious practices

Satya Prakash
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, February 10

Holding that a five-judge Bench can refer questions of law to a larger Bench while exercising its review jurisdiction, the Supreme Court on Monday framed seven questions on gender bias in religious practices to be considered by a nine-judge constitutional Bench.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde proposed to hear the matter on a day-to-day basis from February 17 the seven questions that broadly cover the scope and ambit of religious freedom and interplay between religious freedom and freedom of beliefs of religious denominations under Article 25 and Article 26. It said Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, would open the arguments followed by senior advocate K Parasaran.

The Bench — which also includes Justice R Banumathi, Justice Ashok Bhushan, Justice L Nageswara Rao, Justice Mohan M Shantanagoudar, Justice S Abdul Nazeer, Justice R Subhash Reddy, Justice BR Gavai and Justice Surya Kant – will deal with the power of a person who does not belong to a particular religion or sect of a religion to question the religious beliefs of that religion by filling a PIL.

The Bench was originally constituted to deal with issues of gender bias in religious practices referred to it by a five-judge Bench headed by the then CJI Ranjan Gogoi in the Sabarimala Temple review hearing.

Besides Sabarimala, the court’s November 14, 2019, verdict had also referred issues of entry of Muslim women into mosques and dargahs and of Parsi women, married to non-Parsi men, being barred from the holy fire place of an agyari, to the larger bench.

By 4:1 verdict, a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by the then CJI Dipak Misra had on September 28, 2018, allowed entry women, irrespective of their age, into the Sabarimala Temple by declaring the age-old practice unconstitutional. Justice Malhotra, the lone woman on the Bench, had dissented.

However, while deciding review petitions against the 2018 verdict, it had on November 14, 2019, enlarged the scope of the issue and referred to a larger Bench issues relating to discriminatory practices in other religions as well for laying down constitutional principles for determination of such issues.

It had taken into account the issue of entry of Muslim women in a durgah/mosque and entry of Parsi women married to a non-Parsi into the holy fire place of an Agyari and female genital mutilation in Dawoodi Bohra community.

“It is time this court evolved a judicial policy befitting its plenary powers to do substantial and complete justice and for an authoritative enunciation of the constitutional principles by a larger bench…”, the court had said in its November 14 verdict.