The priests at Chilkur Balaji temple thanked the Supreme Court for referring the review of Sabarimala judgement to a nine-judge Bench instead of a seven-judge one as per its earlier order.
The top court on Monday issued a notice informing listing of the petition filed by Indian Young Lawyers Association seeking review of its historic 2018 judgement that allowed women and girls to enter the Sabarimala temple.
"Take notice that the following matters will be listed for hearing before a nine-Judge Constitution Bench commencing from Monday the January 13, 2020", the notice had said.
"This will give a greater scope to rectify the ambiguities in the Apex Court judgements on Shirur Mutt case which has led to the courts following a defective methodology of interpreting Article 26," Archaka Rangarajan, a priest at the Chilkur Balaji temple said in a release.
"The term denomination has been wrongly interpreted to deny the rights to thousands of temple deities. Temples have been illegally taken over by the state governments and the pious purpose for which the deities have taken the form of idols for uplifting the mankind spiritually has been denied," he added.
Rangarajan further said that constitutional rights of the temple deities should be ensured.
"The Constitutional rights of the temple deities should be properly guaranteed. Inquiring into which part is religious and which part is secular cannot be done by the Courts. Even this should be left to the religious groups," he said.
"It is heartening to note that a nine-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court will hear from January 13, the issue of allowing women and girls of all ages to enter Kerala's Sabarimala temple along with other contentious issues of alleged discrimination against Muslim and Parsi women," he added.
( With inputs from ANI )