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The Madras High Court adjourned a PIL seeking to declare a rule of Tamil Nadu’s Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department preventing women from entering temples during a particular period as null, by two months.
A division bench, comprising Justices T S Sivagnanam and Pushpa Sathyanarayana said:
The rule prohibits women from entering temples “at such times during which they are not, by custom and usage, allowed to enter.”
Alleging discrimination between men and women, the petitioner S Aarthy said there are hundreds of temples in Tamil Nadu and the HR&CE controls entry to them.
Aarthy said that no rules, statutory or otherwise, can prescribe any condition on women relating to a particular point of time during which they can be prohibited from entering a temple and worship.
The petitioner then sought a direction from the Court to declare Rule 3(C) of the Rules under Tamil Nadu Temple Entry Authorization Act 1947, unconstitutional, null and void.
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