Aliya Assadi, one of the iconic leaders of Muslim girls movement against Hijab ban in Karanataka, on Thursday said Supreme Court of India judge Justice Dhulia’s judgment in Hijab ban case has further strengthen her hope in fair judgement.
“This judgement upheld the rights of victims girls. Hon’ble justice dhulia’s statement has further strengthen our hope in fair judgement and continued constitutional value atleast in minuscule,” said Aliya who was denied education at Udupi government educational institution for wearing Hijab last year.
Aliya was one among the first batch students who demonstrated the recent hijab ban and approached courts for the fight they believe “a constitutional one.”
“Thousand of hijabis students are waiting resume their education. tawakkaltu alAllah,” read her tweet.
While Justice Dhulia set aside the Karnataka HC verdict, Justice Hemant Gupta said that prohibiting the hijab does not not violate free expression and choice of Muslim girl students.
Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia in his judgment in Hijab ban case Thursday, strikes down the Karnataka BJP government’s Hijab ban in educational institutions. He said education of girl child most important.
“The High Court took a wrong path. It is ultimately a matter of choice and Article 14 and 19,” he said.
“Our plea was straight forward & simple, All we asked was our personal choice & dignity. Happy that our plea was rightly accepted by Justice Dhulia, being students we hope that our democracy will never deprive us from our educational rights along with our choice to wear Hijab,” tweeted another Muslim student activist Hiba Sheik.
The Supreme Court Thursday delivered a split verdict on petitions challenging the March 15 Karnataka High Court verdict dismissing a batch of pleas filed by Muslim girls studying in pre-university colleges in Udupi seeking right to wear Hijab in classrooms.
Justice Hemant Gupta dismissed the 26 appeals filed against the judgment of the Karnataka High Court which held that hijab was not an essential practice of Islam and allowed the ban on wearing headscarf in educational institutions in the State.
Expressing the divergence in his opinion, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia set aside the Karnataka High Court judgment and held that the entire concept of essential religious practice was not essential to the dispute.
Justice Dhulia said: “Asking a pre university schoolgirl to take off her hijab at her school gate, is an invasion on her privacy and dignity. It is clearly violative of the Fundamental Right given to her under Article 19(1)(a) and 21 of the Constitution of India. This right to her dignity and her privacy she carries in her person, even inside her school gate or when she is in her classroom. It is still her Fundamental Right, not a ‘derivative right’ as has been described by the High Court.”
“Considering the long wait and the observations of Justice Dhulia, the K’taka Govt order on the ban must be withdrawn at the earliest, allowing admission of Hijabi students to educational institutions,” demanded the National Federation of Girls Islamic Organistions.
The Muslim women student body said it stand with the protesting students in Karnataka in their future struggle.
AIMIM chief and Hyderabad parliamentarian Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday said that he was hoping for a resolution of the hijab case in the Supreme Court, and maintained that the Karnataka High Court had misused Quranic commentaries in their judgment.
“We were hoping that there would be a resolution today. But one Supreme Court judge’s judgement has come in the favour of hijab. And the [Karnataka] High Court’s judgment in my opinion was bad in law, bad in terms of contents, it had misused Quranic commentaries and translation. This has serious ramifications and should not have been allowed,” the AIMIM chief said, adding that the students were donning the hijab because God in the Quran tells them to.
