The Supreme Court of India will shortly announce its judgment on a batch of petitions challenging the Karnataka High Court’s judgment from earlier this year which upheld the ban on wearing the hijab inside classrooms at educational institutions in the state.
In September, the apex court concluded a marathon hearing spread over 10 days. A bench comprising Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia heard the arguments from the petitioners and the counsels representing the Karnataka government, and a collective of college teachers.
Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, representing petitioning Muslim girls, argued that the scope of the case was restricted to the Karnataka government’s decision to prescribe uniforms for pre-university college students. The advocate remarked that the Supreme Court need not go into the broader questions of religion in the case. The Karnataka High Court had earlier held that the wearing of hijab is not an essential religious practice in Islam.
The Karnataka government issued an order on February 5, 2022, a month after students in a government college in Udupi approached their college principal seeking permission to wear the hijab inside the classroom. The state government in its order banned the wearing of clothes which 'disturb equality, integrity and public order' in schools and colleges. Advocate Dushyant Dave, arguing for the petitioners, stated that this order issued in the middle of an academic year could not supersede the guidelines laid down by the Karnataka Education Department, which said that uniforms were not compulsory.
Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia however raised the point that the case was not about the uniform but whether educational institutes were permitting the wearing of hijab on the campus or not. The petitioners argued that unlike triple talaq or cow sacrifice, the hijab was mentioned in the Quran and was a religious duty for girls to wear it.
Senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, meanwhile, argued that most girls who wore the hijab came from conservative families and questioned that the restrictions would adversely affect their education. He argued that the state's legitimate interest was to encourage diversity and not have uniformity in all practices. “Why should someone feel that someone's religious observances obstruct secular education or unity?” he asked. He further argued that Muslim girls wearing the hijab did not violate the fundamental rights of other religions.
Karnataka Advocate General Prabhuling Navadgi, who represented the Karnataka government, said that the petitioners in this case must show that hijab is an essential religious practice in Islam to claim protection under Article 25 of the Constitution which lays down the freedom of religion. In addition, he said that if there is no fundamental right to wear the hijab under Article 25, what remains before the Court is the question of reasonableness of restriction of uniform in school. The AG, arguing in court, emphasised that the restriction on wearing the hijab was only being enforced inside classrooms and that the state government has not touched upon any religious aspect while arguing against wearing of hijab in schools and colleges.
He had also said that in countries like France and Turkey where hijab is prohibited in educational institutes, Muslim women don't cease to be Muslims. He argued that the hijab was not essential to Islam.
The Supreme Court is hearing a batch of petitions which challenged an order laid down by the Karnataka High Court in March 2022 upholding the state government’s rules on a uniform dress code, which effectively barred the wearing of hijab in educational institutions in the state.
The High Court case was prompted by a petition filed by students of a government-run pre-university college in Udupi district of Karnataka which disallowed Muslim girl students from entering their college classroom because they were wearing the hijab.
The dispute in the Udupi college began in December 2021 and it made international headlines in January 2022 when Muslim students were photographed outside their classrooms missing classes for wearing the hijab. The Muslim students were backed by the Campus Front of India, the student wing of the Muslim organisation Popular Front of India (PFI) which was banned in September 2022.
The dispute then spread to several parts of the state in the first week of February 2022 when students wearing saffron shawls stood opposed to their hijab wearing classmates. On February 5, 2022, the Karnataka government mandated a dress code, banning the wearing of clothes which disturb equality, integrity and public order in schools and colleges.
This government order was challenged, with the Muslim girl students arguing in court that wearing the hijab is a part of their faith and it is their fundamental right to do so. But the Karnataka High Court upheld the state government’s order banning the hijab in schools and colleges.
A full bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justice Krishna Dixit and Justice JM Khazi had held that wearing of hijab by Muslims was not an essential religious practice of Islam.