Reporting By: Amit Kashyap.
A Special Leave Petition has been filed before the Supreme Court challenging the Karnataka High Court’s Hijab judgment which held that Hijab is not an essential religious practice of Islam and upheld the ban on wearing hijab in government schools and colleges.
According to the legal news web portal Bar & Bench the plea has been field by Niba Naaz, a student from Karnataka through advocate Anas Tanwir.
The plea said that the High Court “failed to note that the right to wear a Hijab comes under the ambit of ‘expression’ and is thus protected under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.”
It also contended that the High Court failed to take note of the fact that the right to wear Hijab comes under the ambit of the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
With regard to uniform, the plea said that the Karnataka Education Act, 1983, and the Rules made under the same, do not provide for any mandatory uniform to be worn by students.
“A perusal of the scheme of the Act reveals that it aims to regulate the institutions, rather than the students. Sections 3 and 7 of the said Act provide the State Government with the powers to inter alia regulate education, curriculum of study, medium of instruction, etc. However, neither of these provisions empowers the State Government to prescribe a uniform for the students,” the petition said.
The petition also said that there is no provision in the Act or the rules allowing the formation of a ‘college development committee’.
Such a committee, even if formed, has no powers to regulate the wearing of a uniform, or any other matter in an educational institution, it has been contended.
The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday upheld the government order (GO) effectively empowering college development committees of government colleges in the State to ban the wearing of hijab (headscarves) by Muslim girl students in college campus.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justices Krishna S Dixit and JM Khazi held:
-Hijab is not a part of essential religious practices of Islam;
-Requirement of uniform is a reasonable restriction on the fundamental right to freedom of expression under Article 19(1)(a);
-The government has the power to pass the GO; no case is made out for its invalidation.
The hearing before the Bench had lasted 11 days, before the verdict was reserved on February 25. On the very first day of the hearing, the Court had passed an interim order directing students not to wear hijab, saffron shawls (bhagwa) or use any religious flags while attending classes in colleges which have a prescribed uniform.
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