The Allahabad High Court has recently ruled that wearing a headscarf cannot be established as an essential religious practice of Islam. This decision was made in a case involving a Muslim student’s demand to wear a hijab with her school uniform at the Tagore Public School in Prayagraj. A Division Bench of Justices J.J.
Munir and Indrajeet Shukla dismissed the petition filed by a Class 11 student seeking permission to wear a headscarf along with the prescribed uniform. The student had argued that wearing the scarf was an essential religious practice protected by her fundamental rights under Articles 14 and 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. She had worn a headscarf at the same school from Class 6 onwards without objection.
The High Court stated that the fact that the student had worn the scarf for several years did not create an enforceable right to compel the school to relax or alter its uniform policy. The court observed that no other girl student, including those from the same religious community, was wearing a headscarf. The court relied on earlier judgments by the Bombay High Court and Karnataka High Court, which held that wearing a headscarf was not an essential part of Islamic faith for women.
The Allahabad High Court concluded that the dispute was principally about compliance with an institutional dress code rather than interference with the student’s freedom of faith. The court stated that the school was not seeking to curtail the petitioner’s freedom of faith, but rather required conformity to institutional discipline, of which a uniform was an essential part. The court’s decision emphasized the importance of institutional discipline and the need for students to adhere to the prescribed uniform.
It noted that allowing individual students to depart from the uniform on subjective grounds would undermine the authority of the institution to determine school discipline.
