The observation was made in a case involving a Muslim student’s demand to wear a hijab with her school uniform.
The Allahabad High Court recently held that wearing a headscarf could not be established as an “essential religious practice” of Islam.
In her plea, the student had argued that wearing the scarf was an essential religious practice protected by her fundamental rights under Articles 14 and 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. She had worn a headscarf at the same school from Class 6 onwards without objection, she said. “We have perused the photographs from various classes relating to the petitioner. Except for her, no other girl student is donning the headscarf, even those belonging to the same religious community as the petitioner. The Allahabad HC concluded that the dispute was principally about compliance with an institutional dress code rather than interference with the student’s freedom of faith. “The school in this case does not seek to curtail the petitioner’s freedom of faith at all. All that they require is conformity to institutional discipline, of which a uniform is an essential part. In the event individual students were permitted to aid or depart even a little bit from the prescribed uniform on subjective grounds, it would militate against the idea of a uniform.
Wherever this issue has arisen, the High Courts have been unanimous in opinion that wearing a headscarf is not essential part of the Islamic faith for a woman to don, in the absence of which faith would be jeopardized,” the HC said. It would transfer the authority to determine school discipline from the institution to individual students,” the High Court said.
