A division bench of Justices J J Munir and Indrajeet Shukla dismissed the petition filed by minor student Sukaina Rizvi through her mother. The judgment was delivered on August 21 and became publicly reported on Monday, August 24, amid continuing legal debate over religious clothing and uniform regulations in educational institutions.
Rizvi was a student of Tagore Public School at Attarsuiya in Prayagraj, a private unaided school affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education. She had completed Class X and sought admission to Class XI at the same institution.
Her petition asked the court to direct the school to allow her to wear a headscarf along with its prescribed uniform. She maintained that she had worn the scarf since childhood and had continued doing so while studying at the school from Class VI to Class X.
The court held that a student could not compel a school to modify a dress code that was uniform, bona fide and non-discriminatory and was designed to maintain discipline and institutional identity.
It said school uniforms serve several purposes, including promoting discipline and equality among children, projecting a common institutional identity and reducing distinctions inside classrooms. A uniform rule applying to pupils of different faiths also helps create a religion-neutral environment, the bench observed.
The judges examined photographs from various classes and noted that no other female student shown in them was wearing a headscarf, including pupils belonging to the same religious community as the petitioner. The court considered this alongside the absence of material demonstrating that wearing the scarf inside the classroom was obligatory to the student’s faith.
Rizvi had relied on constitutional protections, including equality, freedom of expression, personal dignity and freedom of religion. Her arguments invoked Article 25, which protects freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise and propagate religion, subject to constitutional limitations.
The bench said a claim for protection under Article 25 could not succeed solely on an assertion that a practice was religious. A petitioner seeking such protection had to establish an adequate factual and legal foundation showing that the practice was essential to the religion or that failure to observe it would affect the fundamental character of the faith.
The court said the petition contained no authoritative religious text or other sufficient material establishing that a Muslim woman was religiously obliged to wear a headscarf inside a classroom. The student’s statement that she had followed the practice since childhood was not considered enough to establish an essential religious practice.
The judges also relied on judicial precedents concerning hijab and institutional dress codes. They said high courts considering similar questions had generally taken the view that wearing a headscarf had not been demonstrated to be an essential religious practice whose non-observance would jeopardise Islamic faith.
Particular attention was given to the Karnataka High Court’s 2022 full-bench judgment arising from the controversy over hijab restrictions in educational institutions. That court had held that wearing the hijab was not an essential religious practice under Islam and upheld the authority of educational institutions to prescribe uniforms.
The Karnataka ruling subsequently reached the Supreme Court, where a two-judge bench delivered a split verdict on October 13, 2022. Justice Hemant Gupta dismissed the appeals challenging the restrictions, while Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia allowed them and set aside the Karnataka High Court judgment.
Because of that disagreement, the matter was referred for consideration by an appropriate larger bench. The Allahabad High Court noted that the Supreme Court has not yet delivered an authoritative final ruling settling the broader constitutional dispute.
Despite the split verdict, Justices Munir and Shukla said the Karnataka High Court’s full-bench decision remained persuasive authority of considerable value and found no reason to adopt a different position on the material placed before them.
