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Indian Young Lawyers Assn. V. State of Kerala 2018 SCC Online SC 1690 (Sabarimala Case)

The document discusses several issues related to women's rights and discrimination against women in India. It summarizes a Supreme Court case from 2006 regarding female entry to the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala. The Supreme Court found that restricting entry based on sex violates Articles 14, 15, 17 of the Constitution by encouraging discrimination. It determined the practice was not an essential religious practice protected by Article 25, as removing it would not change the nature of the religion. The judgment acknowledged that discrimination stems not just from state or individual actions, but also institutional design like caste and patriarchy.

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Nandini Sharma
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59 views2 pages

Indian Young Lawyers Assn. V. State of Kerala 2018 SCC Online SC 1690 (Sabarimala Case)

The document discusses several issues related to women's rights and discrimination against women in India. It summarizes a Supreme Court case from 2006 regarding female entry to the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala. The Supreme Court found that restricting entry based on sex violates Articles 14, 15, 17 of the Constitution by encouraging discrimination. It determined the practice was not an essential religious practice protected by Article 25, as removing it would not change the nature of the religion. The judgment acknowledged that discrimination stems not just from state or individual actions, but also institutional design like caste and patriarchy.

Uploaded by

Nandini Sharma
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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well as quest for women’s rights, equality and what has now come to be placed under the rubric of

women’s “bodily integrity.” The Supreme Court (SC), and in many cases even some of the State High
Courts, have had the audacity to change the status quo; Their judicial hammerings have sought to lead
the way for making decisive inroads for basic human rights of Indian women in a society essentially
driven by patriarchy. The practice of discrimination [7] takes place, among others, under the garb of
cultural norms, religious mores, and social constructs as well as even under legislations (as has been
the case with the 1860 Indian Penal Code [IPC]). The Constitution and many of the statutes provide
for equality of all individuals and grant them equal protection before the law [8]. Hence, the role of
the courts, especially the higher judiciary, becomes imperative since they are the watchdogs for
enforcement of fundamental rights enshrined under the Constitution [9].

Restricting women’s entry to places of religious worship has become a highly contentious issue of
late. Though such practices have been persisting for decades in India, movements across the country
have recently espoused these concerns, leading to several petitions being filed in High Courts and in
the Supreme Court [10]. Demonstrating an encouraging trend, courts have emphatically upheld rights
of women to equality and freedom of religion, thus striking down the restrictions imposed [11].

Chandrachud J. sets up the issue in the introductory part of his judgment, where he observes that the
Indian Constitution is transformative in two distinct ways: first, in setting up the governing
institutions of an independent Republic, transitioning from colonial rule; but also, “placing those who
were denuded of their human rights before the advent of the Constitution – whether in the veneer of
caste, patriarchy or otherwise – in control of their own destinies by the assurance of the equal
protection of law” [12]. The reference to caste and patriarchy is important, because it acknowledges
that discrimination is not limited to State action, or even to hostile individual action, but that it also
flows from

institutional design: caste and patriarchy is neither “State” nor an agglomeration of individual acts
where you can attribute discriminatory agency to identifiable individuals [13].

Indian Young Lawyers Assn. v. State of Kerala 2018 SCC OnLine SC 1690 (Sabarimala Case)
Popularly known as the Sabarimala Case, this came before the Supreme Court of India in the year
2006 by way of a Public Interest Litigation under Article 32 of the Constitution of India. The
Association of Indian Young Lawyers, i.e., the petitioners, prayed for the

1. Entry of female devotees between the age group of 10 to 50 at the Lord Ayyappa Temple at
Sabarimala (Kerala) which has been denied to them on the basis of certain custom and usage;

2. To declare Rule 3(b) of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (authorization of Entry) Rules,
1965 (for short, “the 1965 Rules”) framed in exercise of powers conferred by Section 4 of the Kerala
Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorization of Entry) Act, 1965 (for brevity, “the 1965 Act”) as
unconstitutional being violative of Articles 14, 15, 25 and 51A(e) of the Constitution of India;

3. To pass directions for safety of women pilgrims, and lay guidelines in matters of general inequality
related to religious practices in places of worship.

The Supreme Court to solve this case framed various Issues which are:
1. Whether the practice encourages ‘discrimination’ and violates Articles 14, 15, 17 and the word
‘morality’ as mentioned in Articles 25 and 26 of The Constitution of India? The court answered in
affirmative stating that this practice encourages discrimination on the basis of sex and hinders the
right to equality.

2. Whether the practice comes under the garb of ‘essential religious practices’ as mentioned in Article
25-essential religious practices only? Judicial pronouncements over the years have come to the
conclusion that the test to determine whether a part or practice is essential to a religion is to find out
whether the nature of the religion will be changed without

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