SC to take up questions on women's rights on Jan 13

The Supreme Court's nine-judge bench would on Monday take up questions on rights of females from different faiths, including of Muslim, Paris, and Dawoodi Bohra community, arising out of its 2018 judgement on the entry of all age group women to Kerala's Sabarimala temple.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan, L Nageswara Rao, Mohan M Shantanagoudar, S Abdul Nazeer, R Subhash Reddy, B R Gavai and Surya Kant would assemble on January 13 to consider the questions framed on November 14, 2019.

A five-judge Constitution bench, by a majority view of 3:2, referred the matter to a larger bench of not less than seven judges, on a batch of petitions questioning the validity of 2018 judgement and seeking its review.

The issues involved here related to the interpretation of the provisions of the Constitution touching upon the right to profess, practice and propagate one's religion, and no discrimination on the basis of sex, among others.

The court had then said similar pending questions related to Muslim women's right to enter 'dargah' and mosque, and permission to Parsi women, married to a non-Parsi, into the holy fireplace of an 'Agyari' and practice of female genital mutilation among Dawoodi Bohar community would require authoritative determinations.

A nine-judge bench was last constituted in 2017 when it delivered a milestone judgement declaring the right to privacy as a fundamental right in the Justice K S Puttaswamy case.