Thiruvananthapuram: Chief priest of the Lord Ayyappa Temple in Sabarimala, tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru, has got two more weeks to explain why a purification ritual was held after the visit of two young women to the shrine. The Travancore Devaswom Board extended the deadline, which was about to expire Monday, after a request from the tantri.

The tantri had decided to close the sanctum sanctorum of the temple for an hour and conduct purification rituals after two women - Bindu and Kanakadurga - stepped into the hallowed precincts guarded by the police on January 2.

The two women, in their 40s, entered the temple more than three months after the Supreme Court's historic judgment lifting the ban on the entry of girls and women between 10 and 50 years of age into the shrine of Lord Ayyappa.

On September 28 last year, a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in a 4:1 verdict paved the way for entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple, saying the ban amounted to gender discrimination.

The top court has said it may not start hearing pleas seeking a review of the Sabarimala verdict from January 22 as one of the judges was on medical leave.

Meanwhile, the Kerala High Court is set to hear a plea on Monday challenging the Devaswom Board’s show-cause notice to the tantri on the purification ritual. Bangalore resident V Ranjith Sankar had moved the court saying the board had no right questioning tantri’s decisions when it comes to rituals in a temple. The notice to the tantri violates the religious freedom of lakhs of Ayyappa believers. Hence the notice is illegal, the petition said.