Sabarimala Reference: How exactly do Articles 25 and 26 intersect? | Key Takeaways from Union and Review Petitioner arguments
We review the arguments on the Sabarimala Reference last week that grappled with the question of just how much the State can interfere in the affairs of religious communities and whether ‘English’ legal concepts adequately captured Indian religious life.
Ajitesh Singh
13 April 2026
LAST WEEK, a nine-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant heard arguments over three days on questions that have been building up since 2006, when the Indian Young Lawyers Association filed a public interest litigation that eventually led to the 2018 Sabarimala judgment, including the present reference.
Though this bench is not directly examining the 2018 judgement, it is addressing larger issues referred to it in February 2020. How much freedom do religious communities have to run their own affairs? How much can the State interfere? And when someone challenges a religious practice in court, what exactly is the court allowed to decide?
As the Court prepares to hear the Respondents this week, we review what the Union government and Review Petitioners argued last week, specifically on the issue of how Articles 25 and 26 inter-operate in the schema of fundamental rights.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union, opened last Tuesday with the core argument that the Constitution leaves the determination of religious content to the religion itself.
Two articles, two different rights
At the heart of the hearings lay Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution, provisions that sit at the centre of contestations defining the scope and limits of religious freedom in India.
Article 25 gives every individual the right to follow, practice and propagate their religion, subject to public order, health, morality and to the other provisions of Part III. Article 26 gives religious denominations the right to manage their own religious affairs without State interference. While the former is a personal right, the latter belongs to the religious community as a collective.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union, opened last Tuesday with the core argument that the Constitution leaves the determination of religious content to the religion itself. Courts are not institutionally equipped, legally or theologically, to assess whether a particular practice is sufficiently central to a faith to deserve protection. “Unless we achieve that level of spiritual supremacy,” he told the bench, “we will not be in a position to assist what exactly Prophet Muhammad said, or Lord Jesus said, or what the Veda says.”
Through all three days, the precise relationship between the two articles was widely discussed. Article 25 is expressly made subject to other provisions of Part III, the chapter dealing with the fundamental rights, meaning other fundamental rights can limit it. Article 26 contains no such qualification. If Article 26 is truly free of any external constitutional constraint, a religious denomination could potentially use it to override even the fundamental guarantees of equality and non-discrimination under Articles 14 and 15. Mehta argued this could not be the right reading since after I.R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu (2007) and R.C. Cooper v. Union of India (1970), no fundamental right could be read as a complete island.