BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court will pronounce the much-awaited verdict over the hijab issue on Tuesday. The full bench of Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justices Krishna S Dixit, and JM Khazi will pronounce the judgment at 10.30 am.
The full bench of the High Court commenced the hearing of hijab pleas on February 10, 2022, and reserved the verdict on February 25, 2022, after hearing the arguments for two weeks of a batch of petitions questioning the order dated February 5, 2022, passed by the state government to ban hijab in school and college campuses.
The petitioners-students from Government PU College for Girls at Udupi and several others have challenged the government order.
Purdah or burqa may not be an essential practice but a headscarf or hijab is an essential part of Islam, and two judgments of the Kerala High Court and the Madras High Court, which has gone through Islamic verses and scriptures, have arrived at this conclusion, the petitioners' counsels argued.
On the counter, the state government contended that the hijab is not an essential religious practice.
Citing several supreme court's judgments, starting from Shirur Mutt to Sabarimala cases, in support of his arguments that wearing hijab is not essential religious practice under Article 25 of the Constitution, the state argued that petitioners-students have placed zero materials to substantiate their claim to declare that wearing hijab is an essential religious practice.
On February 10, 2022, the full bench passed the interim order restraining all the students regardless of their religion or faith from wearing saffron shawl (Bhagwa), scarfs, hijab, religious flags or the like within the classroom, pending consideration of the petitions.
However, the court made it clear that this interim order is confined to such of the institutions wherein the College Development Committees (CDCs) have prescribed the student dress code/uniform.