A girl child has the right to wear hijab in her house or outside, and that right does not stop at her school gate, Supreme Court Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia declared on Thursday.
"The child carries her dignity and her privacy even when she is inside the school gates, in her classroom. She retains her fundamental rights. To say that these rights become derivative rights inside a classroom is wholly incorrect," he said.
In his separate judgement, Justice Dhulia allowed appeals against the Karnataka High Court's March 15 judgement which upheld the ban on hijab in classrooms of the government's Pre University Colleges.
"All the petitioners (girl students) want is to wear a hijab! Is it too much to ask in a democracy? How is it against public order, morality or health or even decency or against any other provision of Part III of the Constitution? These questions have not been sufficiently answered in the High Court judgement," he said.
Justice Dhulia said there shall be no restriction on the wearing of hijab anywhere in schools and colleges in Karnataka.
"Under our Constitutional scheme, wearing a hijab should be simply a matter of Choice. It may or may not be a matter of essential religious practice, but it still is, a matter of conscience, belief, and expression," he said.
"If she (a Muslim student) wants to wear hijab, even inside her classroom, she cannot be stopped, if it is worn as a matter of her choice, as it may be the only way her conservative family will permit her to go to school, and in those cases, her hijab is her ticket to education," he added.
Maintaining that the question of diversity and our rich plural culture important in the context of our present case, Justice Dhulia further said, "Our schools, in particular our Pre-University colleges are the perfect institutions where our children, who are now at an impressionable age, and are just waking up to the rich diversity of this nation, need to be counselled and guided, so that they imbibe our constitutional values of tolerance and accommodation, towards those who may speak a different language, eat different food, or even wear different clothes or apparels!"
This is the time to foster the student's sensitivity, empathy and understanding towards different religions, languages and cultures. This is the time when they should learn not to be alarmed by our diversity but to rejoice and celebrate this diversity. This is the time when they must realise that in diversity is our strength, he wrote.
"A girl child for whom it is still not easy to reach her school gate. This case here, therefore, has also to be seen in the perspective of the challenges already faced by a girl child in reaching her school. The question this court would put before itself is also whether we are making the life of a girl child any better by denying her education merely because she wears a hijab!," he asked.
Justice Dhulia said one of the best sights in India today, is of a girl child leaving for her school in the morning, with her school bag on her back.
"She is our hope, our future. But it is also a fact, that it is much more difficult for a girl child to get education, as compared to her brother. In villages and semi urban areas in India, it is commonplace for a girl child to help her mother in her daily chores of cleaning and washing, before she can grab her school bag. The hurdles and hardships a girl child undergoes in gaining education are many times more than a male child," he said.