Bengaluru: The three-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court has passed an interim order restraining all the students regardless of their religion or faith from wearing scarfs, hijab, saffron shawls, or religious flags within the classrooms.
The three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi has further observed that the interim order is confined to the institutions where the college development committees have prescribed the student dress code or uniform.
The bench has requested the state government and all stakeholders to reopen the educational institutions and allow the students to return to the classes at the earliest. The state government has ordered to close the high schools and colleges for three days after hijab row gets widespread protest in colleges across the state.
The bench further observed that “Ours being a civilized society, no person in the name of religion, culture or the like can be permitted to do any act that disturbs public peace and tranquility”.
“Endless agitations and closure of educational institutions indefinitely are not happy things to happen. The hearing of these matters on an urgency basis is continuing. Elongation of academic terms would be detrimental to the educational career of students especially when the timelines for admission to higher studies/courses are mandatory”, the three-judge bench observed.
“The interest of students would be better served by their returning to the classes than by the continuation of agitations and consequent closure of institutions. The academic year is coming to an end shortly. We hope and trust that all stakeholders and the public at large shall maintain peace and tranquility”, the court said in the interim order.
“We are pained by the ongoing agitations and closure of educational institutions since the past few days, especially when this Court is seized off this matter and important issues of constitutional significance and personal law are being seriously debated”, stated in the order.

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“It hardly needs to be mentioned that ours is a country of plural cultures, religions, and languages. Being a secular state, it does not identify itself with any religion as its own. Every citizen has the right to profess and practice any faith of choice, is true”, the court observed.
However, such a right not being absolute is susceptible to reasonable restrictions as provided by the Constitution of India. Whether wearing of hijab in the classroom is a part of the essential religious practice of Islam in the light of constitutional guarantees, needs a deeper examination, the court mentioned in the interim order.

Senior counsel of Supreme Court, Sanjay Hegde, appearing for the Muslim girls of Udupi first grade college argued that the 1983 act does not have any provision which enables the educational institutions to prescribe any uniform for the students.

The 1995 rules apart from being incompetent do not apply to Pre-University institutions since they are promulgated basically for Primary and Secondary schools. These Rules do not provide for the imposition of any penalty for violation of the dress code if prescribed by the institutions, he contended.
Even otherwise the expulsion of the students for violating the dress code would be grossly disproportionate to the alleged infraction of the dress code, he argued.
Advocate Mr. Devadatt Kamat appearing for girl students of Kundapuara Bhandarkar’s college disputed the government order making uniforms compulsory in the schools and colleges.

He contended that the decisions of Kerala, Madras, and Bombay High Courts on which it has been structured have been wrongly construed by the government as hijab being not a part of essential religious practice of Islamic faith and that there is a gross non-application of mind attributable to the Government.
He also submits that the State Government has no authority or competence to issue the impugned order mandating the College Development Committees to prescribe student uniforms.

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He further that dress and attire are a part of speech and expression; the right to wear hijab is a matter of privacy of the citizens and that institutions cannot compel them to remove the same.
Advocate General has opposed for passing interim order, he contends that no prima facie case is made out for the grant of any interim relief. The impugned order per se does not prescribe any uniform since what uniform should be prescribed by the institutions is left to them.
The agitation should come to an end immediately and peace and tranquility should be restored in the society; there is no difficulty for the reopening of the institutions that are closed for a few days in view of disturbances and untoward incidents, he stated.

Advocate general Prabhulinga Navadgi submitted that all stakeholders should make endeavors to create an atmosphere of peace and tranquility so that the students go back to the schools and prosecute their studies.
Nobody should pollute the congenial atmosphere required for pursuing education.

 All stakeholders should show tolerance and catholicity so that the girl students professing and practicing Islamic faith can attend the classes with hijab and the institutions should not insist upon the removal of hijab as a condition for gaining entry to the classrooms, the Advocate General submitted.

 Advocate General also brought to the notice of the Court that there are several counter agitations involving students who want to gain entry to the institutions with saffron and blue shawls and other such symbolic clothes and religious flags. Consequently, the Government has clamped prohibitory orders within the radius of 200 meters of the educational institutions, he submitted.