The court dismissed the petition filed by a student seeking direction to school authorities to permit the petitioner to wear a headscarf in addition to the uniform prescribed by the school.
In a significant ruling the Allahabad High Court has clarified that no student has a right to alter dress code prescribed by an educational institution according to personal preferences.
She moved the court through her mother asking directions to the school authorities to permit her to wear a headscarf in addition to the uniform prescribed by the school. A two-judge bench comprising Justices JJ Munir and Indrajit Shukla observed: “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 court also rejected the argument that wearing headscarf is an essential Islamic practice.
The petition contended that wearing a headscarf is essential part of the Islamic practice and that the petitioner has been wearing it since class 6 in the same school.
“Wherever this issue has arisen, the high courts have been unanimous in opinion that wearing a headscarf is not an essential part of the Islamic faith for a woman to don in the absence of which faith would be jeopardised,” the court added. The court in its judgment passed on August 21 also observed, “It is to be noted that the assertion in the writ petition that wearing a headscarf is an essential religious practice is a bare assertion.”
