Hijab ok on campus, not in the classroom

On Friday, the Supreme Court partly stayed a directive by a city college that prohibited students from wearing religious attire on campus, and affirmed that students should be free to choose what they wear.

- Musab Qazi

In its interim order, a bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjay Kumar put a stay on the prohibition on wearing hijab (headscarf), badge and cap, while allowing the institute to continue restricting naqab (face veil) in classrooms. The court also issued a notice to the Chembur Trombay Education Society, which runs the NG Acharya and DK Marathe College at Chembur, and sought its response by November 18.

The stay comes more than a month after the Bombay High Court upheld the college's new 'dress code', which required students to wear 'decent and formal attire and banned religious markers, specifically mentioning hijabs, naqabs, burqas, stoles, caps and badges.

The directives, issued before the new academic year, met with severe backlash, especially from the female Muslim students of the institute, who felt that it encroached on their religious and personal freedoms.