BENGALURU, DEC 22   :   Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said he has directed officials to withdraw the hijab ban.

He also called Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sab ka saath sab ka vikas bogus and alleged that the BJP is doing the work of dividing people and society based on dress and caste.

“PM @narendramodi’s sab ka saath-sab ka vikas is bogus. @BJP4India is doing the work of dividing people and dividing society based on clothes, dress, and caste. I have told to withdraw the hijab ban,” Siddaramaiah posted on X.

As of now, the case pertaining hijab ban is pending before a larger bench in the Supreme Court after the two-judge bench passed a split verdict on a plea filed by the aggrieved students.

Justice Hemant Gupta upheld Karnataka High Court’s decision upholding the ban was correct, and dismissed all appeals to the High Court decision.

Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, however, stated that the High Court decision must be reconsidered.
He quashed the Government Order which led to the hijab ban by stating that the High Court ‘took the wrong path’ by basing its decision on the essentiality of the hijab to Islam.
Instead, equality and free expression should have been the focus, he said. “It is a matter of choice, nothing more nothing less,” he stated.

Before this, the Karnataka High Court had upheld the hijab ban in the state’s educational institutions by pronouncing that the prescription of a dress code is a reasonable restriction that the State can impose on students in government educational institutions.

It is not a violation of the Right to Freedom of Expression and the Right to Privacy respectively held under Articles 19(1)(a) and 21 of the Constitution of India, 1950.

The Court also stated that the state government had the power to issue the Order banning the hijab on February 5, 2022, and there were no grounds on which the Order could be invalidated.

The row over the hijab ban first broke out in January last year when six female students protested against government pre-university colleges in Udupi for not allowing them to wear hijab in the college.

However, the college authorities stated that the female students were not allowed to wear hijab as per the dress code implemented by the institution. They clarified that the dress code allows the girl students to enter the college wearing hijab, but not during classes in classrooms.(UNI)