The Karnataka High Court adjourned the hearing in the hijab case for Thursday morning i.e., 24th march 2022.
The Karnataka government on Tuesday told the High Court that there is no restriction on wearing Hijab in India with reasonable restrictions subject to institutional discipline and dismissed the charge that denial to wear the headscarf was a violation of Article 15 of the Constitution, which prohibits discrimination of every sort.
Countering the petitioner Muslim girls from Udupi district, who challenged the restriction on Hijab inside the educational institutions, Karnataka Advocate General Prabhuling Navadgi said the right to wear the headscarf falls under the category of 19(1)(A) and not Article 25 as has been argued by the petitioners.
The full bench of Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justice J M Khazi and Justice Krishna M Dixit is hearing a batch of petitions seeking permission to wear Hijab inside the classroom.
Senior Advocate Sajan Poovayya in Court: The preamble of the Karnataka Education Act says that its objective is to form a secular outlook.
The basic constitutional value as a school is to impart secular education and to protect dignity of a girl child. Why is it that we teach our girl child to dress modestly and not boys?
It is a duty as a school to ensure that a minor girl is not shackled to a practice. The decision whether to wear a Hijab is on them when they attain majority. I have a duty to ensure that I achieve secularism.
Equality in education, it does not matter whether you are a Hindu or kodava, Christian or Muslim-Shia or Sunni. The dress is uniform. When I prescribe a uniform as an institution, religion is immaterial to me .