Reportedly the Travancore Devaswom Board, an autonomous body, which manages 1248 temples including the hill shrine of Sabarimala, has come out in support of women entry into the temple, in a departure from its initial position. Meanwhile on Wednesday, advocate Rakesh Dwivedi appearing for TDB said that the board was in favor of the September 2018 verdict by the Supreme Court and an application has been filed to that effect.
He told "Women cannot be excluded from any walk of life on biological attributes, equality is the dominant theme of the Constitution”, where a 5 judge Constitutional bench of the apex court which comprised of Justices Indu Malhotra, RF Nariman, AN Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud apart from CJI Ranjan Gogoi. Accordingly Rakesh also argued that Article 25(1) of the Constitution equally entitles all persons to practice religion, where his explanation was preceded by a specific inquiry by Justice Indu Malhotra on TDB’s change in stance.
Moreover the petition was filed when the Congress led UDF was in power in Kerala and after the LDF government came into power, the TDB changed its stance, as did the government and the Constitution bench reserved its verdict on 65 petitions asking for a review of the September 28 verdict allowing women of ages into the temple.
