In 2018, the Supreme Court said women of all ages could enter Sabarimala. Eight years later, the government that celebrated that verdict doesn’t want it enforced anymore.
Today, a 9-judge Constitution Bench — headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant — begins hearings that are scheduled to wrap by April 22. The original 2018 ruling was a 4-1 split: four justices said banning women aged 10-50 violated equality (Article 14) and religious freedom (Article 25). Justice Indu Malhotra dissented, warning courts shouldn’t decide what’s “essential” to a faith. None of those five judges are on this bench.
Two women — Bindu Ammini and Kanakadurga — entered the temple in January 2019. The temple was shut for “purification.” Protests killed at least one person and injured roughly 100. The verdict has never been meaningfully implemented since.
Everyone Changed Sides
Here’s what makes this hearing different from 2018: the political map has flipped. Kerala’s LDF government originally championed women’s entry. With Kerala votes April 9, the election timing adds pressure. Now it wants “wider consultation with religious experts” before any judicial intervention. The Union government backs the review and opposes entry. The Travancore Devaswom Board, which manages the temple, has opposed it all along.
The court lost its majority too. When review petitions reached a 5-judge bench in 2020, only two judges supported the original verdict. Three referred it upward. That’s how you get a 9-judge bench — not because the law demanded it, but because the consensus collapsed.
Bigger Than One Temple
The bench won’t just revisit Sabarimala. It will examine whether courts can override religious practices that discriminate against women — across faiths. Muslim women’s entry into mosques. Female genital mutilation among Dawoodi Bohras. Parsi women married to non-Parsis barred from fire temples. The “essential religious practices” doctrine — one of several constitutional tests before the Supreme Court this term — is itself on trial.
Nine judges, fifteen days, and one question India has been deferring since the Constitution was written: when faith and equality collide, who gets the final word?
The hearings start today. The answer won’t be simple. But for the first time in eight years, at least someone’s asking.