Thiruvananthapuram: Reacting to the Supreme Court’s 3:2 verdict referring the Sabarimala review pleas to a larger bench, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said the government is attempting to get more clarity on the verdict.
“Our government is fully committed to abide by whatever the verdict is and there are no questions about it. At the moment there is some ambiguity over the verdict and for more clarity, we will seek legal help,” Vijayan said, while speaking to the media, here.
“Once this verdict undergoes legal scrutiny, it will be more clear and for that we will do the needful. Today’s verdict has not stayed the September 28th verdict. Had one more person in the bench opposed it, then things would have been different,” noted Vijayan.
The Chief Minister, however was non-committal on questions about how the state government would react if women made a renewed attempt to enter the temple.
“Such things we will see, at the appropriate time,” he said, adding that that there is no stay on the September 28, 2018, judgement, which lifted the ban on the entry of women aged between 10 and 50.
According to this verdict, women of all ages can visit the shrine till a larger bench decides the issue, which is actually no relief to the petitioners who had moved the top court seeking a review of its earlier judgement.
The Chief Justice’s majority judgement clubbed the issues of entry for Muslim women in mosques, of Parsi women being allowed to enter the Tower of Silence, among others, with the issue of permitting women entry into the Sabarimala temple.
Meanwhile, BJP spokesperson Sobha Surendran has cautioned Vijayan and said the party will strongly oppose any breaching of Sabarimala temple traditions.
Last visiting season, while several women, including lady journalists, were chased away while trying to enter Sabarimala by right wing activists, the Kerala Police provided complete security to two women on January 2nd this year and allowed them to pray at the temple.