SC to consider plea for hearing on hijab matter in Karnataka

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to look into a plea for hearing on a permission sought by a group of students to allow them appear in annual examinations in Karnataka's Pre-University Colleges with their head scarf.

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha said the plea for listing would be examined.

Advocate Shadan Farasat on behalf of the students claimed they had to appear in annual examinations beginning from March 9 in government colleges.

They just wanted permission to appear in examinations with their 'hijab', he said, adding the students had already lost one year and if no relief was granted, they would lose another year.

All these students had already shifted themselves to private colleges but they have to go to government colleges for appearing in examinations, he added.

The counsel asked the court to fix the interim application for hearing.

On January 23, a similar request was made on behalf of such students.

On October 13, 2022, the Supreme Court had given a split judgement on the validity of the Karnataka government's ban on wearing hijab in PU colleges, leaving the issue to be decided by a larger three-judge bench.

A bench of Justices Hemant Gupta (since retired) and Sudhanshu Dhulia had said since there is divergence of views, the matter would be posted before the Chief Justice of India for setting up a larger bench.

Justice Gupta had dismissed the batch of appeals filed against the March 15, 2022 judgement of the High Court, which upheld the ban, saying permitting one community to wear their religious symbols would be antithesis to secularism.

Justice Dhulia, however, disagreed by allowing the appeals and quashing the notification issued by the state government on February 5, 2022.