The Supreme Court is all set to hear review petitions against its verdict allowing women of menstruating age to enter Kerala’s famed Sabarimala shrine, an order that snowballed into a major issue in the state .
Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi will head a five-judge constitution bench which will hear the case which was scheduled for hearing on January 22 but had to be postponed as Justice Indu Malhotra was on medical leave.
Here is a timeline of the case:
1991: Kerala High Court upholds an age-old restriction on women of menstruating age entering Sabarimala temple.
2006: Kannada actress-politician Jayamala claims she had entered Sabarimala shrine in 1987 as a 28-year-old and had touched the deity as part of a film shoot.
2006: The Kerala government ordered a probe into the acctress’ cliam, but the case was later dropped.
2008: Kerala’s LDF government files an affidavit supporting a PIL filed by women lawyers questioning the ban on the entry of women in Sabarimala
November 2016: Kerala’s Left Front government says it was for the entry of women of all age groups into the temple.
{{/usCountry}}November 2016: Kerala’s Left Front government says it was for the entry of women of all age groups into the temple.
{{/usCountry}}2018: Supreme Court Chief Justice Dipak Misra, hearing the PIL, questions the temple’s authority to deny entry to a particular section of women.
September 28, 2018: Supreme Court ruled that women, irrespective of age, can enter Kerala’s Sabarimala temple.
November 2018: SC agrees to hear review petitions