Senior lawyer C. Aryama Sundaram will represent the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) in the Supreme Court when the review petitions on the verdict granting unrestricted entry for women to the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple comes up for hearing on November 13.
The decision to engage Mr. Sundaram was made at a board meeting here on Friday.
Being a constitutional body, the board was bound to abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court, president A. Padmakumar said.
The board would appraise its stance only if the court elicited its views while hearing the review petitions.
Expert view
The meeting tasked secretary N. Vasu and the board’s standing counsels at the High Court, K. Sasikumar and S. Rajmohan, to brief Mr. Sundaram of the details of the case.
It also decided to seek the expert view of M. Rajagopalan Nair, a lawyer, who was also the president of the board when the issue of women’s entry was pending before the Supreme Court. Mr. Rajagopalan Nair currently heads the Devaswom Recruitment Board.
The meeting also decided to inform the court of the protests and violence that erupted at Pampa, Nilakkal, and Sannidhanam when the temple was opened for monthly pujas last month and also during the past week.
