One of the most legally and emotionally charged conflicts in recent Indian history is being untangled now at the Supreme Court. In hearings on the Sabarimala reference in mid-April of 2026, a nine-judge Constitution bench found itself in the middle of the fray on the issue of religious freedom. This huge bench is headed by the Chief Justice of India, Surya Kant. The submissions made in the course of the past week compelled the court to make a line in the sand concerning its own powers. Attorneys representing different religious sects continually challenged the authority of the court to meddle with religious affairs. Chief Justice Kant responded by giving the government and the arguing counsels a wake-up call. He made it very clear that the judiciary is aware of its own weaknesses but the fundamental authority of judicial review is not in question.
You need to see how we got to where we are to see how heavy this is. In September 2018, a five-judge bench lifted a centuries-old custom by permitting women of menstrual age to enter the Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala, Kerala. That decision caused a furor in the state. A torrent of petition reviews ensued. In November 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that it had to seek to decide the wider constitutional norms before final decision on the Sabarimala review. This gave rise to the present nine-judge bench that discussed the real extent of religious freedom in Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution.
When senior advocate J Sai Deepak rose to the floor, the tension in the courtroom escalated to an even greater degree. Representing the Pandalam royal family, which is believed to be the fostering family of the deity, Sabarimala, he made a direct legal attack at the jurisdiction of the court. His argument was that the provisions of the constitution that enables the state to implement social change in the religious institutions are applicable to the government only. To him, the judiciary does not possess the mandate to listen to writ petitions that question internal religious practices as per his interpretation of the law. He basically informed the court that it was neither qualified nor mandated to rephrase the rules of an old religion in accordance with contemporary rational criteria.
Chief Justice Surya Kant promptly countered this repressive opinion. He doubted the logical extreme of such a reasoning. He questioned what would occur when a state government, in the name of social reform, chose to completely ban a certain practice of a religion. There must be someone to review the legality of what the state did. The Chief Justice noted that the power of judicial review needs to be defended in order to ensure constitutional balance. He categorically informed the court that there was no need to vigorously strike that power. The bench recognised that there are certain inherent limitations in dealing with faith, however, the possibility of the court accepting the proposition that it has no power at all is absolutely unacceptable.
The Fear of Emptiness of Traditions.
Although the bench upheld its authority, it was very cautious as far as heavy-handed legal interference was concerned. The judges are deeply conscious of the fact that the reduction of faith as a legal riddle can obliterate the meaning of the religious identity. Justice B.V. Nagarathna urged the courts in practice to be cautious not to hollow out a religion in order to fulfill the needs of social welfare. The bench mostly accepted that the task of determining whether or not a strong-held group ideology is correct or incorrect is arguably the most difficult task a constitutional court can undertake.
But they were not prepared to give religious groups a blank cheque either. The bench issued strong concerns during debate on whether religious denominations are to have absolute autonomy over people who are allowed to enter their temples. The court pointed out the dark side of such reasoning when lawyers adopted the argument that Article 26 gives religious groups the right to conduct themselves without the interference of the state. According to the judges, this might create a scenario where minorities, such as Dalits, are legally denied entry because of giving the denominations unconditional power. Justice Aravind Kumar went a step further. He had grave concerns that the extension of religious autonomy to that extent disregards the wider society and that such custom might later lead to a civil war.
The Government stand on Intrareligious Diversity.
Central government also tabled its cards in these hearings. The Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that limiting a particular gender into a certain age-group of not entering a place of worship should not necessarily be termed as discriminative. The government presented that the 2018 decision was a very restrictive one which had the effect of infringing the rich, intrareligious diversity of Hinduism. Mehta claimed that Hinduism has no single text and a fixed rule. It is thus doctrinally unsound and constitutionally threatening to impose a single legal definition on these pluralistic traditions.
This is related to the debate that is still going on regarding the doctrine of Essential Religious Practices. This test has been utilized since decades to determine whether a particular ritual is central to a religion such that it must be provided constitutional protection. Attorneys such as Gopal Sankaranarayanan took hours to contend that such a test cannot work, and that it is utterly unstable. They provoked the court into abandoning the test altogether, that judges do not need to be in the business of making decisions about what is necessary to an ancient religion.
The Headache of Subjective Faith.
The mere inability in the distinction between secular activities and sacred rituals was an overarching theme. Appearing on behalf of the Travancore Devaswom Board, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi openly declared that cases involving religious and non religious aspects provide the headache to the law. He contended to an individualist approach. He informed the bench that when a practice is established to be a part of a truly held religious faith, the courts could not apply external measures of rationality to examine the validity of the practice.
