New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday (May 5), while hearing the Sabarimala temple matter, questioned the locus standi of the original petitioner, whose 2006 public interest litigation (PIL) that culminated in the landmark 2018 ruling allowing entry of women of all ages into Kerala temple, with Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant even suggesting that it should have been “thrown outright in the dustbin”, The Indian Express reported.A nine-judge constitutional bench of the top court has been examining some legal questions surrounding religious rights and freedoms in India, including the discrimination against women at religious places, which includes the review of Sabarimala judgement.On September 28, 2018, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, had in a 4-1 verdict ruled that the practice of banning women of menstruating age from entering the Sabarimala temple was unconstitutional.During the ongoing hearing, advocate Ravi Gupta, appearing for the Indian Young Lawyers Association, which had filed the 2006 PIL, argued that the current reference case was sent to the nine-judge bench “against the Supreme Court Rules”.Meanwhile, the bench questioned the locus standi of the lawyers’ association, led by a person of Muslim faith, filing a PIL concerning entry to a temple.A heated exchange took place as advocate Ravi Gupta told the bench that former CJI Misra had not only entertained the plea but also ordered police protection for him and Naushad Ali, president of IYLA, which he later added that he had refused.As per the Express, Justice B.V. Nagarathna had said, “Since you are referring to the learned former Chief Justice, with great respect, rather than ensuring there was security provided to the advocates, he could have ensured that there was no need for a security threat at all by not entertaining this petition. With great respect, we are saying this.”Gupta argued that the security was due to several threats at that time to him and Ali. “So far as Naushad Ali was concerned, he was only a name-lender president. He did not know anything about Sabarimala… And he started getting threats from all over the world. Chief Justice Dipak Misra was shocked,” he said, as quoted by the daily.“So these threats were there and CJI Dipak Misra was very annoyed, that you cannot stop the judicial process with these kinds of threats. He provided police protection to me, to the president also. I refused,” he added.Justice Nagarathna then asked, “If he (Ali) had no interest in the matter, then why was it (PIL) entertained by this court?”CJI Kant, then referring to a news report annexed to the PIL about the priest of the temple being allegedly found in a compromising position, said, “And we entertain a PIL based upon this kind of document? It should have been thrown outright in the dustbin.”Meanwhile, Justice M.M. Sundresh called it “a clear abuse of the process of law”.As Gupta tried to reason, Justice Nagarathna stepped in to say, “We entertain only real and genuine PILs.”She also questioned how the IYLA was concerned with a question of freedom of conscience. “How does a juristic body have any beliefs? … How are you concerned with all this?… We want to know why you filed this PIL at all? What was it that you wanted to achieve? What good has come out of it?” she said.“Are you the chief priest of the country,” the CJI further asked Gupta.Meanwhile, the bench expressed reservations about permitting individuals without faith in a particular deity to assert a right of entry. “The ones who have faith in the deity will perform all that is needed… someone who says they will break all norms cannot be encouraged,” Justice Nagarathna noted, expressing the court’s concern over the limits of religious freedom claims, Hindustan Times reported.In a connected matter, presented by senior counsel Darius Khambata, the top court heard the case of a Parsi woman, raising the question whether she retains her religious identity, and whether she is barred from a fire temple, if she marries a person of another faith under the Special Marriage Act. The court wondered how freedom of conscience, which accrues upon birth, can be taken away by marriage.The nine-judge bench comprises Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant along with Justices B.V. Nagarathna, M.M. Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, Augustine George Masih, Prasanna B. Varale, R Mahadevan and Joymalya Bagchi.