Hijab Row: Allow Us To Wear Headscarf Matching Colour Of School Uniform, Students Tell HC

The girls petitioned the High Court's entire bench, which included Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justice J M Khazi, and Justice Krishna M Dixit.

Karnataka High Court. (Source: ANI)

New Delhi: The girls who had filed a petition in support of the hijab asked the Karnataka High Court on Monday to enable them to wear Islamic headscarves of the same colour as their school uniform.

The government has restricted the use of any cloth that can disturb peace, harmony and, law and order after the hijab row in Karnataka escalated and protests by students spread to more colleges.

The controversy first erupted in January at a government PU College in Udupi, where six students who attended classes wearing headscarf in violation of the stipulated dress code were asked to leave the campus.

The girls made the plea to the full bench of the High Court, comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justice J M Khazi and Justice Krishna M Dixit, PTI reported.

Appearing on behalf of the girls of the government pre-university college in Udupi, Advocate Devadatt Kamat told the court, "I am not only challenging the GO (Government Order) but also asking for a positive mandate for allowing me to wear a headscarf of the same colour of the uniform."

Kamat also claimed that the central schools permit Muslim girls to wear headscarves of the school uniform colour. Headscarves, he claimed, are an essential religious practice, and restricting its use was violative of Article 25 of the Indian Constitution.

Article 25 reads: "Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion."

Kamat said there was no legislation controlling or prohibiting any commercial, financial, political, or other secular activities under Article 25.

The advocate for the Muslim girls further said that the government had authorised the College Development Committee (CDC), which includes an MLA, to decide the uniform.

"A CDC comprising an MLA is an extra-constitutional authority and a third party to decide what to wear. The government has assigned its responsibility to this third party," Kamat argued.

He also informed the bench that the girls have been wearing hijab for the past two years ever since they took admission. "Due to the other students who suddenly sported a cloth displaying their religious identity, the fundamental rights of his clients were curtailed," the lawyer argued.

"State says that wearing of the headscarf can be a problem as other students want to display their religious identity," Kamat pointed out.

The matter will be heard again on Tuesday, according to the court.

On January 1, six girl students of a college in Udupi attended a press conference held by Campus Front of India (CFI) in the coastal town protesting against the college authorities denying them entry into the classroom by wearing hijab.

This was four days after they asked permission from the principal to wear hijabs in class, which was not permitted. ill then, students used to wear hijab to the campus and entered the classroom after removing the scarves, the college principal Rudre Gowda had said.

"The institution did not have any rule on hijab-wearing as such and since no one used to wear it to the classroom in the last 35 years. The students who came with the demand had the backing of outside forces," Gowda had said.

(With PTI Inputs)