The Supreme Court on Saturday formally notified the constitution of a nine-judge bench to hear the long-pending Kerala’s Sabarimala temple review, reviving a constitutional controversy that has remained in cold storage for six years and could reshape the court’s approach to religion-rights conflicts. Nine-judge bench to hear Sabarimala review from April 7, revisiting women’s entry and larger issues of constitutional morality and religious rights.
The bench will comprise chief justice of India Surya Kant and justices B V Nagarathna, M M Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, A G Masih, R Mahadevan, Prasanna B Varale and Joymalya Bagchi.
The batch of matters arising out of the review of the 2018 verdict allowing entry of women of all ages into Sabarimala temple was last substantively taken up in February 2020. It will now be heard from April 7, with arguments expected to conclude by April 22.
A three-judge bench led by CJI Surya Kant, and comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi, had in February issued procedural directions for the hearing of the reference, which has since grown into one of the most significant examinations of religious freedom under the Constitution. The bench had clarified that directions regarding the constitution and composition of the nine-judge bench would be issued by the CJI on the administrative side — a process now completed with Saturday’s notification.
The court noted that, pursuant to the 2019 reference order, a nine-judge bench had been constituted. Objections to the maintainability of referring questions to a larger bench during the pendency of review petitions were conclusively decided in February 2020, when the court held that it was competent to refer questions of law to a larger bench even while considering review petitions. With that issue settled, the path now stands cleared for substantive adjudication.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Union government, had submitted that the Centre supports the review petitions, effectively opposing the entry of women of all ages into the temple.
The February 2020 order framed seven sweeping constitutional questions, including the interplay between freedom of religion under Articles 25 and 26; the need to delineate the expression “constitutional morality”; the extent to which courts can inquire into particular religious practices; the meaning of “sections of Hindus” under Article 25; and whether “essential religious practices” of a denomination or a section thereof are protected under Article 26. Another question concerns the permissible extent of judicial recognition of PILs challenging religious practices at the instance of persons who do not belong to the concerned denomination.
The Sabarimala review will also anchor a broader cluster of matters raising overlapping questions on the limits of judicial scrutiny in religious affairs. The batch includes the 39-year-old case concerning the Dawoodi Bohra community’s practice of excommunication — the oldest pending case before a Constitution bench — where expulsion results in social boycott and denial of entry to places of worship.
The nine-judge bench will further examine whether a Parsi woman retains her religious identity after marrying a person of another faith under the Special Marriage Act, another dispute engaging the boundaries between personal faith and constitutional guarantees.
The revival of the Sabarimala reference marks a decisive institutional step after years of uncertainty following the 2019 review order and the 2020 ruling upholding the reference to a larger bench. The adjudication is expected to have far-reaching implications for how courts balance essential religious practices, denominational autonomy and individual rights. Together, the seven issues transform the Sabarimala review from a temple-entry dispute into a foundational reconsideration of how the Constitution seeks to balance religious freedom, equality, reform and judicial power.