Has the Kerala government changed its stance when it comes to entry for women in the Sabarimala temple?

The standing counsel for the State of Kerala in the Supreme Court has requested the nodal counsel for review petitioners in Sabarimala matter to add the State on the side of such review petitioners who are seeking a reconsideration of the Court's 2018 judgment permitting women inside the hill shrine.

In a message to the nodal counsel, standing counsel Nishe Rajan Shonker said that the State is supporting the review petitioner on the larger legal issue concerning religious rights and freedoms and the scope of judicial review when it comes to such issues.

This is in stark contrast to the State's earlier stance when it argued against the review petitions and was in favour of the entry of women inside the temple.

A nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court will not be deciding specifically on Sabarimala temple entry but on certain larger legal and Constitutional questions.

The following are the issues the nine-judge bench will examine:

• Ambit and scope of religious freedom;

• Interplay between rights of people under Article 25 and the rights of religious denominations under Article 26 of the Constitution of India;

• Whether rights of religious denomination are subject to other provisions of Part III of the Constitution;

• Scope and extent of morality under Articles 25 and 26 and whether it includes Constitunal morality;

• Whether religious denominations enjoy fundamental rights;

• Meaning of expression "section of Hindus" under Article 25(2)(b);

• Whether a person not belonging to a religious group can question practice of that religious group by filing a PIL.

Based on the decision of the nine-judge Bench, various other cases involving religious rights will be decided, one of which will be the Sabarimala temple entry case.

The Sabarimala temple matter goes back to the top court's September 2018 verdict in which a five-judge Constitution Bench, by a majority of 4:1, allowed women of all ages to enter the hilltop shrine in Kerala. The Kerala government had then supported the entry of women.

That decision by the Court overturned a tradition that restricted the entry of women of menstruating age to the temple.

The ruling triggered widespread protests across Kerala and led to dozens of review petitions being filed by various individuals and organizations before the apex court.

In November 2019, the Supreme Court pronounced its judgment on the review petitions but did not decide the matter one way or the other.

It held that larger issues pertaining to the Essential Religious Practices Test, interplay between Articles 25 and 26 on one hand and Article 14 on the other and the conflict between the judgments in the Shirur Mutt case and Durgah Committee case will have to be decided by a larger Bench.

The Sabarimala review petitions will remain pending until the determination of the questions by the larger Bench, the review Bench held.

Pursuant to that the present nine-judge Bench was constituted. It will hear the case from Tuesday.