Karnataka Hijab row: SC assures 3-Judge bench, Hearing After Holi

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday assured to set up a three-judge bench to hear the plea of Muslim girl students to sit for examinations in Karnataka government schools wearing hijab.

“I will create a bench,” said a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala. The CJI said the matter will be listed for hearing after the Holi vacations.

The examinations are scheduled to be held after five days, the lawyer of the petitioners said, adding, “They have missed one year. They will miss another year.”

“You have come on the last date. We will take it up after vacations (Holi),” the bench told the counsel.

Following the top court’s split verdict on the issue of ban on sporting the Islamic headscarf in educational institutions in Karnataka, girls in hijab are not being permitted to take the exams scheduled to begin from March 9, the bench was told.

On March 15, 2022, the high court had dismissed the petitions filed by a section of Muslim students of the Government Pre-University Girls College in Karnataka’s Udupi seeking permission to wear the hijab inside classrooms, ruling it is not a part of the essential religious practice in the Islamic faith.