OVER TWO DAYS, April 21 and 22, the nine-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant continued hearing arguments on the Sabarimala reference, with the Review Petitioners completing their submissions. Senior Advocates V. Giri, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, J. Sai Deepak, Aryama Sundaram, Gopal Subramanium, Rakesh Dwivedi, Mukul Rohatgi and Neeraj Kishan Kaul addressed the Court.
The hearings majorly moved across three interlocking issues: the relationship between Articles 25 and 26, the meaning of ‘religious denomination’ and the question of temple entry, and whether ‘morality’ in the two provisions can accommodate constitutional morality as an independent doctrine of judicial review.
Previously, the Review Petitioners and the Union government had argued over how Articles 25 and 26 inter-operate, with Senior Advocate Singhvi contending that constitutional morality is too vague and dangerous a standard to apply to religious rights, and Senior Advocate Dhavan urging that the Essential Religious Practices doctrine is conceptually unworkable and should not serve as a threshold test to deny constitutional protection. Read our other reports here and here.
