New Delhi
\nWomen devotees, who ran \u201cReady to wait\u201d campaign to support the restriction on entry of women in the age group of 10 to 50 years in Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, on Thursday told the Supreme Court that Lord Ayyappa\u2019s right to privacy as an \u2018eternal celibate\u2019 must be respected.<\/p>\n
\u201cA deity, having a distinct legal personality, was entitled to the rights under Articles 21, 25 and 26 of the Constitution\u2026.Lord Ayyappa\u2019s right to maintain his \u2018eternal celibate\u2019 status is covered under the right to privacy under Article 21,\u201d advocate J Sai Deepak told a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra on behalf of People4Dharma which represents the women devotees of Lord Ayyappa.<\/p>\n
A nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had in 2017 declared right to privacy a fundamental right under Article 21.<\/p>\n
Article 25 and Article 26 deal with right to religion and right of religious denominations, respectively.<\/p>\n
Deepak contended the celibate nature of the deity was integral to the practice which should not be disturbed and whether a particular practice was essential to practise a faith was a question of trial that would require leading evidence for and against.<\/p>\n
His arguments were contested by Justice DY Chandrachud who said a practice, even if essential, cannot violate constitutional principles.<\/p>\n
Sometimes judges would be required to don the mantle of theologians in deciding issues relating to religion, Deepak responded giving the example of Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai.<\/p>\n
In that case, the Bombay High Court had gone into Hadiths and other Islamic scriptures and recorded evidence to deliver its verdict.<\/p>\n
He said it was for those challenging the age-old practice to adduce evidence.<\/p>\n
He said Articles 25 and 26 represented a social contract between the nation state and religion as these provisions drew a line for the state.<\/p>\n
The entry restriction on women between 10 and 50 years was not based on gender; Deepak said emphasising every exclusion didn\u2019t amount to discrimination.<\/p>\n
Senior advocate V Giri representing the Sabarimala Temple \u2018Tantri\u2019 argued that everyone asserting right to religion basically said \u2018I believe in the deity\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that is so, their belief must be in sync with the character of the deity which is an essential characteristic of the deity and therefore the religious denomination. The character of the deity cannot be wished away,\u201d Giri submitted.<\/p>\n
The Bench also comprising justices RF Nariman, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra is seized of PILs against the age-old tradition of keeping women of 10-50 years out of the famous Sabarimala Ayyappa temple one of the holiest Hindu shrines situated on a hilltop in Kerala.<\/p>\n
The tradition is rooted in the belief that the deity is an eternal celibate . The petitioners have challenged Rule 3 of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship Rules, 1965 which restricts entry women between the age of 10 and 50 into the shrine.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Nair Service Society which represents the Nair community in Kerala had contested the Supreme Court\u2019s observation that the restriction on entry of women of menstruating age into Sabarimala Temple was due to patriarchy and most women were conditioned to obey it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi Women devotees, who ran \u201cReady to wait\u201d campaign to support the restriction on entry of women in the age group of 10 to 50 years in Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, on Thursday told the Supreme Court that Lord Ayyappa\u2019s right to privacy as an \u2018eternal celibate\u2019 must be respected. \u201cA deity, having a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37469,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312,315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37470,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37468\/revisions\/37470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}