Arguing before the Supreme Court, senior advocate Kapil Sibal on Thursday quoted a Deccan Herald news report based on the response received by reporter Harsha under the RTI, showing a 16% dropout of students in Pre University Colleges due to the hijab ban.
"145 students out of 900 have collected their transfer certificates..It is very very disturbing," he submitted before a bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia.
Representing Samastha Kerala Sunni Yuvajana Sangam (SYS), Sibal also said the matter should be referred to the Constitution Bench.
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"The constitutional issue in this batch of petitions raises questions which have not been decided before by this court and relates to whether freedom of expression, a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(a), includes the right of a citizen to express herself by giving expression to her culture with reference to how she covers her body," he said.
Sibal said hijab can be worn at public places in our country, it is expression of who you are, what you are and where you belong to.
"Will my fundamental rights get extinguished when I enter school? I have been wearing Hijab, it is part of my persona, part of my cultural tradition, does this stop at the college gate," he asked.
"Am I not entitled to say I belong to diverse culture, autonomy of mind and body," he further asked.
"The kind of dress worn by a citizen also gives expression to the autonomy of the mind by which she also protects the autonomy of her body. There can be no quarrel with the proposition that a citizen is entitled to give expression of her personality by not just wearing a dress of her choice but, in the context of her cultural traditions, wearing such dress which allows others to identify that she belongs to a particular community, embraces a particular culture, and represents the values of that culture," he said.
Sibal said since the birth of our Republic, in Karnataka, this practice of wearing a hijab has been followed by girl students and there has been no untoward incident till date that can give rise to a situation where the state, which is obligated to protect the composite culture of India, has chosen to intervene through a “government order”, contrary to the provisions of the Constitution, and allows for the infringement of fundamental rights without any compelling need and without any rational basis.