New Delhi: A day after counsels cited judgments by foreign courts, especially the United States and South Africa, discrimination against Sikh students in France figured during the Supreme Court hearing challenging Hijab ban Thursday.
However, like the last hearing, the SC bench asked the lawyers representing the petitioners to limit their argument to India.
“A survey of Sikh students in France show how they felt humiliated to enter school. It showed how they lost their identity and how they wanted to leave the country. Even Muslim students were negatively impacted", Advocate Nizam Pasha told the Supreme Court during the hearing challenging the Karnataka HC Judgement upholding the state’s order to ban Hijab in schools and colleges.
Advocate Nisam Pasha, representing the student, before a bench comprising Justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia, also cited the permission granted to Sikh students to wear Turban or Kara to defend the right to wear Hijab.
To this, Justice Dhulia said:
"We are not going there. If we are going there, we are go nowhere."
Advocate Pasha however insisted and said:
"The example is immediate and proxime. The example of France.. We are deluding ourselves."
"I went to an all-boys School, fortunately or unfortunately. And in my class, there were several Sikh boys who wore turban of the same colour of uniform. It has been established that it will not cause violation of discipline", he said.
The SC however asked him not to compare the two matters.
"Please don't make any comparison with Sikhism. These are all practices well established, well engrained in the culture of the country", Justice Gupta said.
Unperturbed, Pasha responded by asserting:
"Islam is also there for 1400 years and the Hijab is also present."
The Supreme Court scheduled the matter for further hearing on Monday at 02:00 pm.
Earlier, Senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, another counsel for the Muslim students, contended before the SC bench that Article 25 only protects the innocent bona fide practice of religion.
"The argument of the state is that if I wear hijab, other students will wear orange shawl. Wearing an orange shawl is not a genuine religious belief. It is a belligerent display of religion, that if you wear this, I will wear this...", said Kamat.
He further added that every religious practice may not be essential, but that does not mean the state can keep restricting it as long as it does not fall foul of public order, morality, and health. Kamat said the question is whether uniformity in public space is a ground to restrict Article 25? Whether a Muslim girl wearing a head scarf is an insult to discipline?
Kamat added that one can wear headgear, kara, as part of his religious belief, it may not be a core religious practice, but as long as it does not affect public order, health or morality, it can be allowed.
The bench queried Kamat that wearing a hijab in street may not offend anyone, however, wearing it in a school might raise a question, what kind of public order school would want to maintain?
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