“Will You Ban Tilak, Bindi?”: Supreme Court Stays Mumbai College's Hijab Ban
Slamming Mumbai’s private college for barring students from wearing burqas and hijab on campus, the Supreme Court on Friday stayed a circular issued by the college until November 18.
Passing the interim order while hearing a petition filed by Muslim women students of NG Acharya & DK Marathe College in Mumbai, the top court questioned the institution’s authority on how they were empowering women by dictating what to wear.
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“Will it not be up to the girl what she wants to wear? How are you empowering women by telling them what to wear?” asked the court after it was told that the majority of the Muslim students are “happily attending” and only a few of them had raised an issue.
Comprising of the bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjay Kumar, the court pointed out the college’s selective ban on religious symbols, asking why it had not extended the prohibition to other markers of religion such as tilak or bindi.
“Girl students must have freedom of choice in what they are wearing, and college cannot force them… It’s unfortunate that you suddenly wake up to know that there are many religions in the country,” the bench told the college administration at the centre of a fresh row over a dress code for Muslim students,” observed the court.
“All these years you did not have the instructions, and suddenly you realise that there is religion. It’s unfortunate that you come up with such instructions after so many years,” asked the court after it was told that the institution had been in existence since 2008.
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The Supreme Court was hearing a plea challenging the Bombay High Court’s verdict on June 26, where it dismissed the students’ petition challenging the ban.
In their plea, the students claimed that the new dress code directly violated their fundamental right to practice their religion and their right to privacy and dignity. The plea called the college’s directive “arbitrary, unreasonable, bad-in-law, and perverse.”
