Let HC Decide: SC Resists Bid To Make Hijab Row Pan-India Issue

CAA, Ggn Namaz Row, Dharam Sansad Anti-Muslim: Std 12 Girl Petitioner

- Dhananjay Mahapatra

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday resisted attempts to make the hijab (headscarf) row in Karnataka a pan-India controversy by asking a Muslim girl student petitioner from Udupi to await the Karnataka high court’s decision instead of rushing to the SC and told her counsel Kapil Sibal that it would be improper for the SC to take up the issue when the HC is actively examining it.

Sibal made an out-of-turn mention before Chief Justice N V Ramana and sought urgent hearing on the petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution by a Class 12 student, Fathima Bushra. Apart from challenging the Karnataka government’s decision to ban hijab in educational institutions, she has raised a host of controversies — Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), cow vigilantism, Gurugram open namaz, laws against religious conversion and hate speeches at Dharam Sansads (religious congregations) — to highlight persecution of Muslims, who constitute 18% of India’s population.

Sibal tried every bit of his famous court craft to convince the CJI to take up the petition and test the constitutional validity of the hijab ban in educational institutions in Karnataka. But CJI Ramana stuck to his oft-repeated stand that the HCs as constitutional courts must be given a free hand to decide important questions of law and that for every incident of alleged violation of constitutional rights anywhere in the country, petitioners need not rush to the SC. The CJI said, “Mr Sibal, please let the Karnataka HC decide the matter. It is actively examining the issue. Why should we jump in at this stage?”