Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala- (Case Commentary)

Introduction

Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala, popularly known as the Sabrimala Temple case is a landmark and a historical judgement for the development of the Indian judiciary, supreme court gave this momentous judgement in the year 2018 where the concerned matter revolved around the prohibition on entry of women’s aging between 10 – 50 years, in the said age, women’s undergo a very natural concept of menstrual cycle; menstrual cycle is a constant and natural change which processes in a lady’s body making a possible opportunity to transform herself from a women to a lady, from a girl to a mother, in epilogue it is a very pure and uncontaminated process which a female goes through probably between the age of 10-50 yrs.

Here this pure process was transmogrified into one of the major reasons of discrimination; this customary prohibition on the entry of a women aging between 10 to 50 was even justified under the Rule 3(b) of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Act, 1965 whose constitutional validity was disputed by the Indian Young Lawyers Association.

The judgement did not only examine the rights of women’s` neither it just made its emphasis over the freedom of religion enshrined under the ambit of PART III of the constitution but rather it  weighed the prominence of the constitutional provisions, may it be the golden triangle of Article 14, 19 and 21 which provides for equality before the law or equal protection of the laws, or it be Article 25 which deals with provisions related to freedom to choose and practice religion.

The temple complex was well known for its divine energy, there were millions of devotees who used to visit the temple in order to seek blessings from lord Ayyappa, however, due to its discriminatory customs the latter came to be a very ostentatious topic in the media and news but if we put our emphasis over the past and see other temples like of these where gender-based discrimination was adopted, with no trouble we will come across the names of the locations like Shani Shingnapur temple, Haji Ali Dargah, Mumbai where the women’s entry was restricted and they were not allowed to enter in the same. Though, many women organisations came forward to show their concerns and with repute to that, Indian judiciary revoked these prohibitions from such believed places and permitted the entry of the women’s in the same.

 

Background

Sabrimala Sree Dharmasastha Temple is located near the Periyar Tiger reserve in Pathanamthitta area which is situated in the state of Kerala, India. Out of the entire globe the temple is one of the largest annual pilgrimage sites in the world with an estimate of over 40 to 50 million devotees visiting every year. The temple is dedicated to a Hindu celibate deity Ayyappan, who according to belief is the son of Shiva and Mohini. Asper the thanthri (Vedic head) of the temple, the deity situated inside the Sabrimala temple is in a yogic or we can call it to be as in a brahmachari form, due to this “naishtik brahmachari” form of god, young women’s, specifically the ones who are between the age of 10 years to 50 years are not at all allowed to offer their prayers in the temple. The deity being in the form of Naisthik brahmachari stands out as an estoppel for the young women’s in delivering their prayers, it was believed that the deity may get distracted or deviated from the path of celibacy due to the presence of a young women inside the temple.

If an individual perceives to go on a pilgrimage to this temple there are certain established norms for that particular individual; the devotee has to practice celibacy for almost 41 odd days before entering into the complex of the temple, furthermore, they are also obligated to observe a lacto-vegetarian diet, allow their nails and hair to grow without any grooming, and last but not the least they have to avoid alcohol or any such kind of habit. The pilgrimages are stated to bath twice a day and habitually visit the locally situated temples every day; all of them were instructed to not shave till the time the journey comes to an end and were told to wear black or blue clothes with a sandal paste over their forehead.

Under the umbrella of an ancient custom, the government of India authorised and gave sanction to Rule 3 (b) of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Act, 1965 which was nevertheless ruled out after the judgement of the Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala. The Rule 3 (b) of the said act was violative of Article 14,15,19, 21, 25(1) and 26 of the Constitution of India and hence, was declared to be invalid and unconstitutional.   

In the year 1991, When a Public Interest Litigation was filed in the Kerala High Court, the Honourable Court recited the custom of restricting entry of a woman aging between 10 to 50 years as a justified and an acceptable custom and hence, the verdict came out in the favour of the Rule 3 (b) of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Act, 1965; the concerned matter to uphold the customary traditions of the Sabrimala was directed further to the Devasam Board. Nonetheless, making a momentous and historic moment for the Indian judiciary, the court of highest appeal in India overturned and reversed the restrictions enshrined under the Rule 3 (b) declaring it to be discriminatory and unconstitutional in the eyes of law. The apex court with a majority of 4:1 ratio ruled that the specified custom leads to a crystal-clear gender discrimination and authorised the entry of women’s inside the temple regardless of their colour, caste, religion, and specifically their age; despite of the tremendous efforts fabricated by the protestors and after a long lasted struggle, 2 women’s below the age of 50 on 2^nd of January, 2019 entered inside the shrine of the Sabrimala Sree Dharmasastha Temple. However, the protests go on till the present date but from the judicial perspective the government has authorised the entry of a person regardless of their caste, colour, creed, gender.  

 

Analysis

The Sabrimala dispute was nothing new to the courts but rather, the story of the same finds its foundation from the year 1991. On 5^th of April, 1991, a two-judge bench at the Kerala High Court decreed and supported the exclusion made by the Travancore Devasam Board (administrating body of the shrine) and quantified that the concerned authority has not at all in any sense encroached any of the either, may it be the constitution of India or the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorization of Entry) Act, 1965.

After more than a decade passed, lord Ayyappa was found to be unhappy in the year 2006; and leading to this notion, an eminent and renowned astrologer directed an assignment named as “devprasnam” which was constituted in order to find the reason behind the anguishes of the god. When the assignment concluded it with all the procedures the astrologer declared that at some point of time in the past, a woman between the age group of 10 to 50  entered into the temple causing the defilement of the rules and customs of the temple; soon with time, the astrologer was proved to be absolutely precise and it was investigated that in the year 1987, a 28 year old women who was an actress-politician entered into the complex of the Sabrimala for a film shoot where she had not only entered the temple but had also touched the deity inside the sanctum sanctorum. Subsequent to this news, the authenticity of the astrologer was evidenced and the assignment named as “devprasnam” did not clinched to be a goose chase but rather it was successful in discovering a precious fact of the past whose silver lining was hidden beneath the grass. The concerned allegations let the Kerala government to probe into the matter through its crime branch but the case was later dropped.

The same issue was raised again in the year 2008 where the Kerala Left Democratic Front (Kerala LDF) filed an affidavit supporting a public interest litigation (PIL) raised by a woman having questions over the prohibition of the entry of the women aging and 10 to 50. Coming after all others in time or order; finally, in the year 2016, the very celebrated “Indian young lawyers association” efficaciously filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court of India criticizing Rule 3(b) of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorization of Entry) Act, 1965.

The above rule which stated “Women who are not by custom and usage allowed to enter a place of public worship shall not be entitled to enter or offer worship in any place of public worship" was found violative of constitutional guarantees imbibed under the PART III of the Constitution having a special concern to the Article 14, 15, 19, 21, 25 and 26. With the valedictory of this long -fought battle, on 28th of September 2018, a momentary judgement by the supreme court of India came with a 4:1 verdict ratio and discontinued the temples age-old tradition by granting women’s of all age groups entry into the Kerala’s cherished Sabrimala Sree Dharmasastha Temple.

 

Conclusion

The Supreme court of India in its final verdict governed that Rule 3(b) of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Act, 1965 is ultra vires to the constitution of India, Section 3 as well as Section 4 of the Act of 1965; the said sections noted that the regulations and rules made under this act shall not discriminate in any manner whatsoever, against any Hindu on the ground that he or she belongs to a particular section or class. The court condemned the prohibition as ‘hegemonic patriarchy’; a hegemonic patriarchy as per the current scenario refers to a situation where patriarchy has become such an overarching idea that discrimination based on it appears to be common sense to such an extent that not only men but even women become the supporter off the very notion. It was pointed that the issue concentrated on the politics of the right to equality and dignity of a women, the custom amounted to discrimination based on biological and psychological features like menstruation which is exclusive to a particular gender and hence, the same amounted to be an unconstitutional custom.

The Supreme Court said that prohibition founded on the notion that menstruating women are "polluted and impure" is a clear-cut form of untouchability and this notions of purity and pollution stigmatizes the dignity of a women. these remarks by the court led the verdict to bring a reformative feature in the concept of ‘untouchability’ in Article 17 of the Constitution of India.

Article 17 - “Untouchability” is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of “Untouchability” shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.

The term “Untouchability” was left undefined by the framers of the Constitution and the line “Untouchability in any form” covers all its kinds, the Supreme Court recognised the practice of excluding women having its base on ideas of ‘purity and pollution’ as a clear practice of untouchability not only this  but moreover, the systemic humiliation, social exclusion and subjugation, differences made due to her menstrual status is all nothing but a form of untouchability.

In this case of State of Bombay versus Narasu Appa Mali, the Supreme Court overturned the 1951 judgement given by the Bombay High Court by holding that personal law is not 'law' or 'laws in force' under the ambit of Article 13 and held that immunising customs takes away the privacy of the constitution. These declarations by the authority elucidated that no customs or usages can claim supremacy over the Constitution and its vision of ensuring sanctity of DIGNITY, LIBERTY AND EQUALITY, henceforth, the customs and personal law have a significant impact on the civil status of an individuals.

Dissent Opinion

When on 28th of September, 2018 the verdict was released, the bench did not support to declare the custom as unconstitutional and void in an absolute manner rather there was a 4:1 ratio in the same. The one who denied to declare the custom as illegal was Justice Indu Malhotra, she in her point of view held that notions of rationality cannot be invoked in the matter of religion by judiciary. Furthermore, to this she added that determination of what constituted an essential practice in a religion should not be decided by judges on the basis of their personal view points, essentiality of a religious practice or custom had to be decided within the religion and it is matter of personal of personal faith. Justice Malhotra observed that the freedom to practice their believes was enshrined in the Article 25 of the Constitution of India, she stated that harmonization of religion with fundamental rights also provides the freedom to the diverse sections of the society to practice their custom and belief.

 

 - Rajat Nischal

Symbiosis Law School.