The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has approached the Supreme Court against the order of the Karnataka High Court regarding the ban on wearing hijab in educational institutions of the state.
The Karnataka High Court had ruled on March 15, that hijab is not essential to Islam and that “wearing the headscarves can lead to social-separateness” in classrooms.
Secretary of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Mohammad Fazlurrahim along with two other petitioners namely, Munisa Bushra and Jaleesa Sultana Yaseen moved to the Supreme Court.
“The ground reality is that the petitioners are compelled to remove their hijab to avail the right of education, at the cost of self-respect and dignity, who themselves wear hijab in public spaces in exercise of their constitutional rights.”
Munisa Bushra
The women petitioners had contended in their plea before the high court that “they should be allowed to wear a headscarf/hijab of the same colour of the uniform so that they may remain consistent with their fundamental right of conscience and expression…whether the petitioners are entitled, on the doctrine of proportionality and as a matter reasonable accommodation to wear hijab.”
The plea added that the high court had framed, “totally erroneous questions which have distracted itself from the real issues arising out of the record before, the discussions on diverse constitutional principles have resulted into conceptual overlapping leading to indirect discrimination”.
The petitioners also explained the scriptures in the Quran, where it is mentioned that hijab is mandatory for Muslim women to protect their dignity.
“There is a consensus amongst religious scholars of all schools of thought that practice of hijab is wajib (mandatory), a set of obligations, which if not followed, he or she will commit sin or become a sinner.”
All India Muslim Personal Law Board
The Chief Justice of India, NV Ramana had earlier declined a request for urgent listing of the pleas challenging the hijab verdict by the Karnataka High Court. The CJI had said, “Exams have nothing to do with this issue.”
A bench of the Karnataka High Court on March 15 had dismissed a batch of petitions filed by Muslim women studying in the colleges of the state seeking right to wear hijabs in classrooms.
The order passed by the court mentioned that the hijab promotes inequality and disturbs integrity and public order and it doesn’t make up an essential religious practice in the Islamic faith and freedom of religion under Article 25 of the Constitution is subject to reasonable restrictions.