Petitioner challenging ban on women's entry to Sabarimala gets threat calls

Seeks to withdraw PIL but top court appoints amicus curiae to look into issue.

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Friday did not allow a petitioner to withdraw a public interest litigation (PIL) he had filed challenging the ban on women entering the centuries-old Sabarimala Temple in Kerala.

Petitioner Naushad Ahmed Khan sought to withdraw the PIL saying he has received nearly 500 abusive calls from India and abroad, some of them threatening death. Khan, the president of Indian Young Lawyers Association, said he was under tremendous pressure to drop the PIL.

The top court, however, said a PILs could not be revoked and decided to appoint an Amicus Curiae to resolve the case.

The Supreme Court, earlier on Monday had questioned the age-old tradition of banning entry of women of menstrual age group in the temple, saying it cannot be done under the Constitution.

-"The temple cannot prohibit entry (women), except on the basis of religion. Unless you have a constitutional right, you cannot prohibit entry. Anyway, we will examine it on February 8,-" a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and N V Ramana said.

The bench was hearing a PIL, filed by the Young Lawyers Association, seeking entry for all women and girls in the Sabarimala temple which, as a practice, does not allow girls after attaining puberty to enter the premises.

During the brief hearing, the bench posed a query as to why women cannot be allowed inside and observed that the practice was not supported by the constitutional scheme.

It asked the government whether it was sure that women have not entered the temple premises in the last 1,500 years.

The bench also observed that it was a public temple and everyone needed to have -"the right to access-". At best, there can be religious restrictions and not a general restriction, it said.