Former Supreme Court Judge Markandey Katju Slams Sabarimala Verdict, Accuses Judiciary Of ‘Over-Activism’

Former judge of the Supreme Court of India, Justice Markandey Katju, has slammed the verdict of the Supreme Court in the Sabarimala temple entry issue where women have been allowed entry into the hill temple and the decriminalisation of adultery.

In a strongly worded tweet, Justice Katju expressed his support to the dissent of Justice Indu Malhotra by observing that “ Justice Indu Malhotra's judgment is correct,& majority is wrong. With this judgment & s.497 one, SC has embarked on a perilous unpredictable path of over activism like US SC in the 1930s utterly lacking in self-restraint, heading for we know not where”.

While Justice Katju expressed his support in respect of the Apex Court decriminalising consensual sex between same-sex couples, he noted that in decriminalising adultery the top court had ignored the social realities in India and proceeded on “its own subjective, abstract and theoretical notions of freedom, equality, dignity, etc”.

In a stinging criticism of the Apex Court, Justice Katju further observed that “ instead of observing the self-restraint, expected of a superior court, it has embarked on a highly perilous and unpredictable path of judicial activism, which can only raise a host of insuperable problems in future”.