Bangalore: The Karnataka High Court in the matter of hijab ban in colleges held that wearing hijab is not a compulsory religious practice in the Islamic faith and because of this, it is not protected under Article 25 of the Constitution. The full bench of the High Court further observed that the prescribing of uniform by the state is a reasonable restriction on the rights of the students under Article 25 and as such, the government order issued by the Karnataka government on February 5 is not a violation of their rights.

Subsequently, the High Court dismissed petitions filed by Muslim girl students, challenging an action to bar them from admission to government PU colleges for wearing hijab.

The questions before the court were:-

1. Is wearing Hijab a compulsory religious practice in the Islamic faith, which is protected under Article 25?

2. Is the instruction to wear school uniform a violation of the rights of the students?

3. Does the government order issued on 5th February violate Articles 14 and 15 apart from being incompetent and clearly arbitrary?

4. Is there any case for conducting disciplinary inquiry against the college authorities?

To this, the Chief Justice of the High Court, Ritu Raj Awasthi, while reading out the operative part of the judgment in open court, said that, to our questions, the wearing of hijab by Muslim women is not a compulsory religious practice in the Islamic faith. He said, 'Our second answer is that the instruction to wear school uniform is not a violation of the rights of the students. It is constitutionally acceptable to which students cannot object. The court further observed that, "In view of the above, the State Government is empowered to issue the mandate dated February 5 and no case is made out for its invalidity." On the other hand, no case is made out for issuing disciplinary proceedings against the defendants and as such the writ of warrants is not maintainable. Being devoid of merit, all the writ petitions are dismissed.

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