Court continues its series of landmark decisions, ruling that ban at Sabarimala is illegal

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

India’s supreme court has ruled against a ban on girls and women of menstruating age from entering a prominent Hindu temple in southern Kerala state, upholding rights to equality of worship.

The authorities at the Sabarimala temple, which attracts tens of millions of pilgrims every year, have said the ban on women and girls aged from 10 to 50 was essential to the rites related to the temple’s chief deity, Ayyappan, who is considered eternally celibate, and were rooted in a centuries-old tradition.

In the supreme court judgment, the country’s chief justice, Dipak Misra, said: “Restrictions put by Sabarimala temple can’t be held as essential religious practice.

“No physiological and biological factor can be given legitimacy if it does not pass the test of conditionality.”

Stating that society needs to undergo a perceptual shift, Misra said: “Patriarchy in religion cannot be permitted to trump over elements of pure devotion borne out of faith and the freedom to practise and profess one’s religion.”

The ruling is the latest in a series of landmark judgments by India’s top court this month, involving some of the most sensitive issues in Indian society.

On Thursday, the court struck down a colonial-era law that criminalised adultery, a day after imposing stringent new limits on how information on the database of the world’s largest biometric identity card programme can be used. Earlier this month, it scrapped a law that criminalised homosexuality, sparking celebrations across India and elsewhere in south Asia, where activists hope to push for similar reform.

The supreme court has been called into action because of a significant rise in public interest litigation in recent years after heal-dragging by successive Indian governments on decisions relating to social issues.

In Thursday’s judgment, Misra said: “The law and the society are bestowed with the Herculean task to act as levellers.”

The temple’s authorities said they will appeal before the temple opens to worshippers again on 16 October.