SC asks lawyers to meet & decide issues for deliberations in Sabarimala, other cases

The Supreme Court Monday asked four senior advocates to convene a meeting to decide on re-framing and adding issues to be deliberated by it in the matter relating to discrimination against women in various religions and religious places including Kerala's Sabarimala Temple.

A 9-judge Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde, commenced the hearing on the matter referred to it by a 5-judge bench on November 14 last year on various issues including evolving a judicial policy to deal with matters relating to religions, their essential practices and the scope of judicial interventions.

At the outset, senior advocate Indira Jaising, who has been appearing in Sabarimala and other matters, opposed the reference.

She said without holding that the Sabarimala judgement was wrong, the matter could not have been referred to a larger bench and moreover, the 7-judge bench verdict in the Shirur Mutt case has not been doubted or assailed to justify a reference to the larger bench.

"We are not hearing the review petitions in the Sabarimala case. We are only on the reference points," the bench clarified.

Jaising said: "There is no defect in the (Sabarimala) judgment. The reference order only says that the issues arising in cases of entry of Muslim women in mosques, rights of a Parsi woman married to a Non-Parsi and the practice of Female Genital Mutilation by the Dawoodi Bohra community may overlap with the issues in that judgment, and that the prospect of the reference of those issues to a larger bench cannot be ruled out.

"No competent court has said that Sabarimala judgment is bad in law. If Your Lordships say it is not correct, only then will subsequent questions arise."