Logic may not be the right tool to examine belief systems: SC

POLITY – JUDICIARY

9 APRIL 2026

• The Supreme Court said courts cannot hollow out religion in the name of reform, and that logic may not be the right tool to examine faith and belief systems.
• The remarks from the nine-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant came during the second day of hearing a reference triggered by a 2018 judgment upholding menstruating women’s right to enter and worship at the Sabarimala shrine in Kerala.
• Justice B.V. Nagarathnasaid “in the name of social reform, a religion cannot lose its identity”, echoing the Centre’s stand that the core of a religious faith cannot be sacrificed citing reform.
• Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, for the Centre, submitted that reform must come from within the religion.
• “If I believe in something and it is not against public order, morality or health, there cannot be a judicial review based on rationality and science,” Mr. Mehta said.
• “The concept of logic cannot be applied to religion,” Justice M.M. Sundresh observed.
• Mr. Mehta read out senior advocate Nani Palkhivala’s arguments quoted in the judgment in Seshammal versus State of Tamil Nadu that “under the pretext of social reform, the State cannot reform a religion out of existence”. The 1972 case had dealt with Tamil Nadu law which ended the hereditary right of succession to the office of Archakas.
• The Centre argued that the court had gone wrong in restricting the right to religious freedom to only “essential religious practices”.
• Hinduism, he said, for example, was not a ‘one-creator-one-book’ faith, but was host to a plurality of beliefs.
• It would be impossible for courts to apply a strait-jacket approach to distinguish between core beliefs or practices and mere superstition.