Supreme Court of India gives split verdict on hijab ban

The Supreme Court of India on Thursday delivered a split verdict on the Karnataka Government’s hijab ban as the bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia could not arrive at a unanimous decision.

Justice Gupta dismissed the pleas challenging the hijab ban in the state and upheld the ban while Justice Dhulia allowed them and set the ban aside.

Siding with the Karnataka High Court’s order, Justice Gupta said that there was a divergence of opinion and asked 11 questions from the petitioner before dismissing their plea.

Meanwhile, Justice Dhulia said: “It’s ultimately a matter of choice and nothing else. Uppermost in my mind was the education of the girl. I respectfully disagree with my brother’s judge.”

In light of the judges not being able to make a unanimous decision, the matter had been placed before Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit for appropriate directions.

Notably, on September 22, the bench of Justices Gupta and Dhulia had reserved judgment on the pleas against the Karnataka High Court judgment refusing to lift the ban on hijabs after hearing arguments for 10 days.

The hijab issue in educational institutions erupted in December 2021 after some Muslim students in the state’s Udupi district said they were not allowed to enter classrooms due to their hijabs.

The incident prompted Muslim students to stage protests across the state, which later turned violent as Hindu students also took to the streets in counter-protests.

The Hindu students argued that if hijabs were allowed in classrooms, their saffron-coloured scarves (symbolising their Hindu faith) should also be permitted.

In February, the state government issued an order stating that students across the state must wear prescribed uniforms while attending pre-university college.

The government’s decision, however, was challenged by several petitioners in Karnataka’s High Court, as they argued that wearing hijabs is an “essential practice” of Islam.

In March, the Karnataka High Court ruled that all students must wear the prescribed uniform as hijabs weren’t an essential religious garment.

There have been also other incidents when girls donning hijabs were not allowed to enter the pre-university college, denied seats for exams and were even suspended.

According to media reports, seven school officials including teachers from Gadag district in Karnataka were suspended for allegedly allowing Muslim students to attend exams in hijabs.

However, teachers denied the allegation as they said that students were allowed inside the school premises but they removed the headscarves inside the classrooms.

Similarly, in April, the main petitioners in the hijab row were denied permission to sit for the pre-university second-year exam in Udupi district.

In the same month, a school in Jammu and Kashmir asked its staff to stop wearing hijabs during school hours.

In a separate incident in June, 12 students in hijabs were denied entry to the classroom and sent home in the Mangalore district of Karnataka.

In the same month, six girls from the Muslim community were suspended in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka for violating the dress code by wearing hijabs.

Later in July, at least 23 girls who staged protests demanding that they should be allowed to wear headscarves inside their classrooms were suspended.

Similarly, Muslim organisations held a protest outside Providence Girls Higher Secondary School in the Kozhikode district of Kerala after the school refused entry to a Muslim girl wearing a headscarf.