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The Supreme Court connected Monday (February 16, 2026) scheduled a bid of reappraisal and writ petitions concerning a September 2018 judgment, which allowed women of menstruating property to participate into the Sabarimala temple successful Kerala, for proceeding earlier a nine-judge Constitution Bench from April 7, 2026.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said the maintainability of the reappraisal petitions had already been decided by an earlier nine-judge Bench constituted successful 2019 by past Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde. The hearings earlier the Bench had to beryllium aborted abruptly owed to the onset of the COVID pandemic.
The Sabarimala lawsuit has travel up for the archetypal clip aft a spread of astir 5 years and station the pandemic. Chief Justice Kant is the lone remaining serving justice of that archetypal nine-judge Bench.
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The Supreme Court gave a little timeline for the proceeding of the lawsuit successful April 2026. The nine-judge Bench would perceive the reappraisal petitioners challenging the 2018 judgement from April 7 to April 9. Those opposing them would beryllium heard from April 14-16. The rejoinder submissions would beryllium heard connected April 21, followed by the concluding submissions from the amicus curiae connected April 22. Parties person to adhere to the timeline, the tribunal stressed.
In November 2019, a bulk judgement by a five-judge Constitution Bench led by past Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had referred the Sabarimala reappraisal and writ petitions to a seven-judge Bench.
Over 60 reappraisal and writ petitions had challenged the Sabarimala judgement of 2018. The 2019 judgement had not expressly stayed the September 2018 verdict.
The 2019 bulk judgement had besides clubbed akin petitions concerning essentiality of spiritual practices pending successful the Supreme Court, including the close of Muslim women to participate mosques, Parsi women who person joined retired of their religion to participate their spiritual spot of worship and the contented of pistillate genital mutilation practised by the Dawoodi Bohra community, with the Sabarimala case.
The judgement successful 2019 had framed ineligible questions successful the case, including whether practices considered indispensable should beryllium fixed law extortion and the grade to which the judiciary could intervene successful an indispensable spiritual practice.
The nine-judge Bench was constituted arsenic it had to needfully delve into a 1954 judgement by a seven-judge Bench successful the Shirur Mutt lawsuit which had for the archetypal clip gone into what constituted “essential spiritual practices”. In the 1954 judgment, the apex tribunal had held that “what constitutes the indispensable portion of a religion is chiefly to beryllium ascertained with notation to the doctrines of that religion itself”.
