Plea seeking early hearing on K’taka HC judgment upholding Hijab ban mentioned in SC

NEW DELHI: A plea seeking early hearing on the petitions challenging the Karnataka High Court’s order upholding a ban on the hijab in educational institutes in the state was mentioned before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora mentioned the plea before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana. The CJI said he will constitute a bench and mentioned that one of the judges was not well and asked the petitioner to wait. He also said that if judges would have been fine, it would have been listed.

Various petitioners have approached the apex court challenging the Karnataka HC order upholding the Karnataka government’s order which directs strict enforcement of school and college uniform rules.

One of the appeals in the top court has alleged “step-motherly behaviour of the government authorities, which have prevented students from practising their faith and resulted in an unwanted law and order situation”.

The appeal said that the High Court, in its impugned order, “had vehemently failed to apply its mind and was unable to understand the gravity of the situation as well as the core aspect of the essential religious practices enshrined under Article 25 of the Constitution of India”. “Wearing of hijab or headscarf is a practice that is essential to the practice of Islam,” it added.

A bench of the Karnataka High Court comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justice Krishna S Dixit and Justice J M Khazi had held that the prescription of uniforms is a reasonable restriction that students could not object to and dismissed various petitions challenging a ban on hijab in education institutions saying they are without merit.

The hijab row erupted in January this year when the Government PU College in Udupi allegedly barred six girls wearing the hijab from entering. Following this, the girls sat in protest outside college over being denied entry.

After this, boys of several colleges in Udupi started attending classes wearing saffron scarves. This spread to other parts of the state as well leading to protests and agitations in several places. As a result, the Karnataka government said that all students must adhere to the uniform and banned both hijab and saffron scarves till an expert committee decided on the issue.

On February 5, the Pre-University Education Board released a circular stating that the students could only wear the uniform approved by the school administration and that no other religious attire would be allowed in colleges. The order stated that in case uniform is not prescribed by management committees, then students should wear dresses that go well with the idea of equality and unity, and do not disturb the social order.

A batch of petitions was filed against the government’s rule in the Karnataka High Court by some girls seeking permission to wear the hijab in educational institutions.

On February 10, the High Court issued an interim order stating that students should not wear any religious attire to classes till the court issued the final order.On March 15, a full bench of the Karnataka High Court dismissed a batch of petitions filed by Muslim girls studying in PU colleges in Udupi seeking the right to wear hijabs in classrooms.

The court also upheld an order issued on February 5 by the state, which suggested that wearing hijabs can be restricted in government colleges where uniforms are prescribed — and ruled that “prescription of a school uniform” is a “reasonable restriction” that is “Constitutionally permissible”.

The court also asked for a “speedy and effective” police probe into the alleged role of “unseen hands” that may have been “at work to engineer social unrest and disharmony” amid protests over the hijab issue.(ANI)