SC: Nobody prohibiting hijab, wearing it to school the issue

Only one community wants to come to educational institutions wearing hijab while others are willing to follow the dress code, the Supreme Court observed on Wednesday as it prima facie disagreed that the Karnataka government’s February order on making uniforms mandatory targeted just one community.

Hearing the Karnataka hijab ban cases, the bench of justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia also disagreed with the submissions of one of the petitioners that right to dress is a fundamental right since it involves freedom of expression.

“You cannot take it to illogical ends. If the right to dress is a fundamental right, the right to undress also becomes a fundamental right... Nobody is prohibiting you from wearing the hijab. The question is about wearing it in school,” the bench told senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, who was appearing for a girl student from Udupi which turned out to be the epicentre of the original protests seeking to wear the hijab.

Kamat sought to persuade the bench that the February Government Order (GO) by the state government specifically mentioned that wearing of hijab is not a part of essential religious practice of Islam, arguing that the GO targeted only one community. The bench, however, responded: “You may not be right. Only one community wants to come with hijab or head scarf while all other communities are following the dress code.”