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9 NUJS L. Rev. [i] (2016)

handle is hein.journals/nujslr9 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITORIAL NOTE SABARIMALA AND WOMEN'S ENTRY: NEED FOR A BAN ON THE BAN I. INTRODUCTION Restricting women's entry to places of religious worship has become a highly contentious issue of late. Though such practices have been persisting for decades in India,' movements across the country have recently espoused these concerns, leading to several petitions being filed in High Courts and in the Supreme Court. Demonstrating an encouraging trend, courts have emphatically upheld rights of women to equality and freedom of religion, thus striking down the restrictions imposed. The Bombay High Court, for instance, ruled that the inner sanctum of the Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra be opened to women, as it is the fundamental right of women to enter all places of worship that allow entry to men, and the duty of the state to protect such right.2 The Court relied on the Maharashtra Hindu Places of Public Worship (Entry Authorisation) Act, 1956, which prohibits obstructing a section or class of the Hindu population from entering places of worship.3 In September, 2016, in a landmark decision, the Bombay High Court permitted the entry of women entry into the sanctum sanctorum at the Several places of worship in India deny entry to women, including the Haji Ali Dargah in Bombay, the Patbausi Satra in Assam, the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, the Trimbakeshwar temple in Nashik and the Kartikeya temple in Pushkar. A common justification given is the fear that the sanctity of the temple premise would be compromised by menstruating women who are considered impure and polluted. See DNA Web Team, Five Places of Worship in India that Deny Entry to Women, April 1, 2016, available at http://www.dnaindia.com/india/ report-shani-temple-sabarimala-sree-padmanabhaswamy-haj i-ali-entry-to -women-2196954 (Last visited on January 17, 2017); Adrija Roychowdhury, Women 'Polluting' Religious Spaces: How the Idea Came About, May 18, 2016, available at http://indianexpress.com/ar- ticle/explained/women-polluting-religious-spaces-how-the-idea-came-about/ (Last visited on January 17, 2017). 2 Reuters in Delhi, Indian Temples Cannot Bar Women, Rules Supreme Court, April 12, 2016, available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/12/indian-temples-cannot-bar- women-rules-supreme-court (Last visited on January 17, 2017). 3 Ruhi Bhasin, Shani ShingnapurRow: Allow Women Entry to Temples, saysBombayHC, March 31, 2016, available at http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/women-cant- be-barred-from-entering-shani-shinganapur-temple-bombay-hc/_(Last visited on January 17, 2017). January-June, 2016

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