New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday declined a request for an urgent listing of the petitions challenging Karnataka High Court verdict upholding the ban on the wearing of Hijab in government educational institutions and observed that the issue of Hijab ban should not be sensationalised.
As senior lawyer Devadutt Kamat in a mentioning said that exams are approaching, Muslim girls are not being allowed to enter educational institutions with Hijab and they will lose their one year, Chief Justice N.V. Ramana heading a bench also comprising Justice Krishna Murari said, “This has nothing to do with exams. Don’t sensationalise the issue.”
As Kamat persisted that they will lose one year as they are not allowed to enter schools with Hijab, Chief Justice Ramana called for the next mention.
Earlier too on March 16 on a mention by senior lawyer Sanjay Hegde, the court had refused an urgent listing of the petitions challenging the Karnataka high court upholding Hijab ban in educational institutions.
The plea mentioned by Hegde had said that the high court judgment creates an unreasonable classification between Muslim and non-Muslim female students in violation of the concept of secularism, which forms part of the basic structure of the Constitution.
The other appeal also challenging the high court judgment has contended that the High Court has 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 has further contended that the right to wear Hijab comes under the ambit of the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Upholding the Karnataka government notification, a three-judge bench of the state high court comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Krishna S. Dixit and Justice J.M. Khazi had had on March 15, 2022, held that the Hijab is not an essential practice under Islam and thus does not fall within the ambit of Article 25 of the Constitution.
The high court has also held that prescription of school uniform is only a reasonable restriction which is constitutionally permissible which the students cannot object to and stated that the government had the power to issue such notification and that no case was made out against the government notification.
