SC to hear Muslim students' petition against Mumbai college hijab ban on Friday

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on Friday a Special Leave Petition filed by Muslim girls of a Mumbai college against theBombay High Court judgment, which had rejected their plea challenging the ban on sporting hijabs, veils, stole, caps, etc.

On Thursday, CJI D.Y. Chandrachud was apprised by the counsel representing Muslim students that they would not be allowed to appear in the college examination and the matter required an urgent hearing. At this, CJI Chandrachud told the petitioners’ counsel that the apex court would hear the matter on August 9.

On June 26, a Division Bench comprising Justice A.S. Chandurkar and Justice Rajesh Patil of the Bombay HC dismissed Muslim students’ plea saying they were not inclined to interfere with the decision of the Chembur Trombay Education Society (CTES)’s N.G. Acharya & D.K. Marathe College.

The girls, students of SYBSc and TYBSc (Computer Science) programmes for the past two years, had termed the CTES management’s decision as "arbitrary, unreasonable, bad in law and perverse" in their petition. The petitioners contended that the new dress code imposed by the college violated their fundamental rights to privacy, dignity and religious freedom.

"The prohibition of wearing a hijab rather leads to indirect discrimination against female Muslim students regardless of the motive behind the Impugned Instruction as the outcome is prejudicial and discriminatory – the same violates Article 14 of the Constitution," said the special leave petition filed before the apex court through advocate Abiha Zaidi.

The prohibition of wearing a hijab has resulted in female Muslim students being stigmatised and not being able to attend classes – this also has resulted in victimisation and indirect discrimination under the guise of enforcing discipline, it added.

Pertinently, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court, in October 2022, gave a split verdict on petitions challenging the validity of the ban on hijab worn by some Muslim girl students in classrooms of pre-university colleges in Karnataka and directed that the matter be posted before the Chief Justice of India, who is the Master of Roster, for setting up a larger Bench.