SUO MOTU Vs. GURUVAYOOR DEVASWOM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These cases call into focus a peculiarly consternating problem reportedly being faced by women devotees at the Guruvayoor Temple, which is under the administrative and supervisory control of the Guruvayoor Devaswom Board (hereinafter referred to as "the Board" for short).

(2.) These matters have been filed by different individuals, who are respectable citizens in various walks of life, making a common complaint that when they went to the Temple for 'darshan', each of them have had individual experiences amounting to harassment, intimidation and insult at the hands of the staff of the temple security force. Their primary allegation is that most of the personnel deployed for temple security, if not all of them, are men, who have no concern or regard for the personal dignity or safety of the women devotees and that they, in their assigned duty of controlling the crowd, pull, grope and push women unmindful of the fact that many of them are in advanced years of age and that the very fact of being in a queue, which contains large number of men is in itself extremely disquieting for them.

(3.) When these matters came to the notice of this Court, we took serious cognizance of the various allegations and concerns shown by the various petitioners and an order, dated 11.4.2018, was issued, which reads as under: