Prayagraj, Aug 24 The Allahabad High Court has dismissed a petition seeking direction to school authorities to permit the petitioner to wear a headscarf in addition to the uniform prescribed by the school for all their students.
The petition was filed by a minor girl and a student of the Tagore Public School, Attarsuiya, Prayagraj who has passed the high school and seeks admission to Class XI in the same institution.
She moved the court through her mother asking directions to the school authorities to permit the petitioner to wear a headscarf in addition to the uniform prescribed by the school.
A two-judge bench comprising Justices J J Munir and Indrajit Shukla observed, "We have perused the photographs from various classes relating to the petitioner. Except for her, no other girl student is donning the headscarf, even those belonging to the same religious community as the petitioner."
"Wherever this issue has arisen, the high courts have been unanimous in opinion that wearing a headscarf is not an essential part of the Islamic faith for a woman to don in the absence of which faith would be jeopardised," the court added.
The court in its judgment passed on August 21 also observed, "It is to be noted that the assertion in the writ petition that wearing a headscarf is an essential religious practice is a bare assertion."
