‘PIL now paisa, political interest litigation’: Supreme Court’s top 5 remarks on Day 11 of Sabarimala hearing

She added, “They have brilliant minds. People have come from the villages with different minds. They have no wherewithal, work for them. Rather than doing this time, in the Supreme Court.” Justice Nagarathna was responding to the question posed by the counsel on the role of the Young Lawyers Association from the side of the review petitioners.”

2. While addressing the counsel’s submission regarding the faith and belief in deity and its relation with the permission to entry into the temple, Justice Nagarathna stated, “This is quite serious. A person who has full faith and belief in the lord or the deity, the goddess, will follow what is required for the performance of worship. If any such devotee is saying, I will break all niyams (rules), and then I will enter, such a person cannot be encouraged by this court….We are on the question of belief, we are not on superstition.”

Justice Nagarathna said public interest  litigation has now become private interest litigation, publicity interest litigation, paisa (money) interest litigation, and political interest litigation.

“We are on a serious issue. Anybody saying who has faith and belief in a particular deity, lord, goddess, or even religion, also, such a person will not say, I will break the niyams and this court must give me the support,” She remarked.

3. Underscoring the significance and the role of PIL, Justice Nagarathna said, “It is easy to get articles written for the sake of filing a PIL. We are very much aware… we have entertained a PIL when we were in the High Court. We are entertaining PILs here for genuine causes…for getting relief to the public, who are in real need of it. Not for articles being written in the newspapers, which are the basis of PILs entertained by these courts.”

She continued that public interest  litigation has now become private interest litigation, publicity interest litigation, paisa (money) interest litigation, and political interest litigation.

4. When Senior Advocate Darius Khambata arguing on the behalf of the Parsi woman married to a Hindu man and facing discrimination over marrying Non-Parsi, Justice Sundresh said,” It’s all boiling down to the common law, common law of conversion, that the merger of the woman’s personality into the man upon marriage, that is what upholds with regard to the merger of the woman in the marriage, and says that in a secular law, perhaps the issue which may crop up on facts is wheather the common law will prevail over a statutory provision.”

5. Addressing the question posed by Senior Advocate Khambata, what if a religious practice is casteist? Will it not have to be tested? Justice Nagarathna said, “That was not religious practice at all. A religious practice will not extend to the exclusion of certain castes. That is not religion, nor is it religious practice.

She clarified, “Article 14 really does not enter the space of Article 25(1). The reason being Article 14 says the state shall not deny any person equality before the law or equal protection of the law. That is the state should.. Here, Article 25 (1), it’s not really against the state. It is recognising an inalienable right to freedom of conscience…but subject to these riders, because we have a written Constitution. We are in the 1950s. We have a written Constitution. Therefore, it says, therefore, Article 14 principle does not really enter Article 25(1) at all.”

“It doesn’t need 14 particular quality principles in itself. When, if there is any religious practice, which excludes a class or a section, then, in that context, Article 25 (2) (b) will enable the state to make a law. That’s why we said religious practice is only an aid,” Justice Nagarathna added.