Hijab Not Essential Part Of Islamic Faith: Allahabad High Court Dismisses Muslim Girl’s Plea To Wear It With School Uniform

Credit: Live Law

On August 21, a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court comprising Justices J.J. Munir and Indrajeet Shukla dismissed a petition filed on behalf of a minor student of a private school in Prayagraj. The girl had completed Class X at the school and was seeking admission to Class XI. Through her mother, she asked to be permitted to wear a headscarf with the prescribed uniform, as she had done since Class VI without objection. The court declined. It held that a student cannot insist on modifying a dress code that is uniform, bona fide and non-discriminatory, and that the petitioner had failed to place sufficient material to establish that covering the head is an essential religious practice of Islam. The Essential Religious Practices test, used by courts to determine whether a practice is sufficiently fundamental to receive constitutional protection, has itself faced sustained criticism. Critics argue that secular courts are not theological authorities and should not determine what a religion considers essential. The Constitution protects religious freedom, but does it give courts the authority to decide which practices are sufficiently “essential” to qualify for that protection?

In this case, the more troubling part is the Court’s approach to religious essentiality. It relied on the 2022 Karnataka High Court judgment in Resham v. State of Karnataka as “persuasive authority of great value”, despite acknowledging that the Supreme Court, in Aishat Shifa v. State of Karnataka, delivered a split verdict and that the question remains unsettled. Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia in case of Aishat Shifa took a fundamentally different approach. He held that deciding whether hijab constituted an Essential Religious Practice was not necessary to resolve the dispute. For him, wearing hijab was a matter of choice and conscience, and asking girls to remove it at the school gate invaded their privacy and dignity. He also shifted attention from theology to education, asking whether denying education to a girl merely because she wears a hijab was making her life any better. That question remains relevant. The issue is not merely whether hijab is essential to Islam. It is whether preserving absolute uniformity is important enough to justify putting a student’s education, dignity and individual choice at stake.