A nine-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court is now hearing a clutch of pleas on allowing women of all ages to enter Kerala's Sabarimala temple, along with other contentious issues of alleged discrimination against Muslim and Parsi women.
What's on Supreme Court Constitution Bench's Table: The nine-judge bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde will hear a batch of 60 petitions. The bench was set up after a five-judge bench headed by then CJI Ranjan Gogoi on November 14, 2019, by a 3:2 majority verdict, referred the case to a larger bench while examining the review petition filed against the September 2018 judgment which had allowed women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala temple.
Who are the 9 judges on Supreme Court Constitution bench?
The bench comprises Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan, L Nageswara Rao, MM Shantanagoudar, SA Nazeer, RS Reddy, BR Gavai and Surya Kant.
IndiaTvnews.com brings to you updates as they come from the hearing in the Supreme Court.
11:41 am: CJI also clarified that only issues referred to by the 5-judge Sabarimala Bench would be considered
11:30 am: CJI Bobde directed that a conference of all lawyers shall be arranged by Sr. Advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Rajeev Dhavan and Indira Jaising within 3 days from today. The Secretary-General shall attend this meeting.
- Whether any issue needs to be reframed, added or modified;
- Allotment of time for each issue;
- Particular time granted to each argument
11: 28 am: CJI Bobde - We will grant you three weeks' time to finalize the issues
11:25 am: Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Indira Jaising state that Senior Advocate Mr. Parasaran must make his notable submissions in this regard as well and offer to put forth the modifications.
11:20 am: CJI Bobde states that the secretary-general of the Supreme Court shall convene the meeting and fine-tune the proceedings.
11:18 am: Sr. Adv. Sundaram states that everything needs to be spelt out in terms of the review instead of going through the impossible task of referring to separate facts.
11.10 am: With lawyers making submissions one after another haphazardly, CJI Bobde assures the lawyers that everyone present shall be heard and they will not rise before doing so.
11.08 am: CJI Bobde says that the lawyers must decide amongst themselves regarding who shall argue what. He stated that Senior Advocates Rajeev Dhavan and Vaidyanathan had done a great job of this in the #Ayodhya matter and we must follow suit.
11:04 am: Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi says that the issues framed are broadly put out and they need to be more specific. To this, CJI Bobde suggested that a conference with both sides be set up to consolidate the issues at hand.
11:02 am: Indira Jaising states that a decision on the review is a precondition in order to decide the present issues. She states that the questions so framed are purely academic in nature and judicially insurmountable.
11:00 am: Rajeev Dhavan, Sr. Advocate (appearing in person as an intervenor)- “The court has no business to decide the religion of a person.”
10:45 am: “We are not hearing the review petition, we are only hearing the 7 points as mentioned in the reference,” says CJI Bobde.
10:40 am: A core committee member of the temple submitted that the review petition be heard in light of submissions by the head of the committee.
10:30 am: Hearing begins in the Supreme Court, batch of 60 petitions to be heard.
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