The Supreme Court's 9-judge Constitution Bench on Tuesday declared that the newspaper article and supporting material for the 2006 public interest litigation (PIL) permitting women's entry into the Sabarimala temple 'deserved to be outrightly thrown into the dustbin.' Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, addressing senior advocate Ravi Prakash Gupta representing the Indian Young Lawyers Association, questioned the validity of admitting a PIL based on a media report, stating, 'We entertained a PIL based on a newspaper article? This kind of document deserved to be thrown outrightly into a dustbin.'

The PIL, filed over a report about astrologers claiming the temple was defiled by women's entry, was admitted in 2006 and eventually led to the 2018 verdict allowing unrestricted access. Justice B V Nagarathna questioned why the Court entertained the petition when the original petitioner, Naushad Ali, had lost interest due to threats, noting he was being portrayed as a Muslim pushing an agenda. Adv. Gupta confirmed the petitioner withdrew due to fear, but former Chief Justice Dipak Misra refused withdrawal, calling it a court matter.

Justice Nagarathna observed that former CJI Dipak Misra could have prevented security threats by not admitting the PIL in the first place, adding that it was now easy to get articles written to file PILs. She warned that public interest litigations were increasingly becoming 'private interest litigation, paisa interest litigation, publicity interest litigation, political interest litigation.' CJI Surya Kant said the source material was not even a proper article but a 'misconduct by some individual,' and legal action should have targeted the guilty party directly.

The Bench also questioned the standing of non-believers and juristic entities like lawyer associations in challenging essential religious practices. Justice Nagarathna asked how an association without religious belief could claim conscience or faith in a deity, and why it did not focus on issues affecting its own members. She emphasized that those without faith in a temple's rules should not seek to break them with court backing.

The Court is reviewing the 2018 Sabarimala verdict, and the Constitution Bench will continue hearing arguments on the scope of judicial intervention in religious practices, with the next hearing scheduled for next week.