NEW DELHI, June 26: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday refused to interfere in a college notification on dress code and dismissed a petition filed by nine girl students challenging the ban on wearing of hijab, burqa and naqab in the college premises.
A division bench of Justices A.S. Chandurkar and Rajesh Patil said it was not inclined to interfere in the decision taken by the college and dismissed a petition filed against it by nine girl students, who are in the second and third year of a science degree course.
The students from Mumbai’s N.G. Acharya and D.K. Marathe College challenged a recent notification on the ban of certain dress codes that prohibit students from wearing hijab, naqab, burqa, stole, cap, etc., on campus.
The students approached the High Court on June 14. In their plea, the students claimed that the new dress code violates their fundamental rights to privacy, dignity and religious freedom to choose what to wear. The plea termed the college action as “arbitrary, unreasonable, bad-in-law and perverse.”
The college had claimed the decision to ban hijab, naqab and burqa in its premises was merely a disciplinary action for the uniform dress code and was not against any community.
The High Court decision come on the heels of a two-judge division bench of the Supreme Court delivering a split verdict in October, 2022, on the then Karnataka government’s order banning wearing of hijab in the premises of educational institutions in that state with one judge supporting the move and the second judge declaring the order null and void in the interest of spreading education among Muslim women. The case is still waiting to go to a larger bench for reconsideration.
(Manas Dasgupta)
