Senior Advocate SS Naganand, appearing for a government pre-university college, continued his arguments on whether prescription of uniform in educational institutions violates the freedom to practice religion. He told the Court that uniform has been compulsory in these colleges since 2004.
He said that some persons from an organisation called Campus Front of India (CFI) started going to schools, insisting that Muslim girls be allowed to wear hijab, after which the students refused to attend classes without hijab. On CFI, he said,
“It is an organization spearheading this drum beating of hijab agitation. It is not an educational organisation or representative of students. It is some organisation which comes and creates this commotion.”
When the Court asked if there was information on this organisation, Advocate General Prabhuling Navadgi said that he would place the same before the Court in a sealed cover.
Naganand further argued that reports on ill-treatment of Muslim girl students by making them remove the headscarves were baseless.
“The petition says the threat was that the students will be marked absent. What is the threat there? If they don’t come to school they have to be marked absent. It says threats were made to not reward internal marks, that never happened, these are bald allegations,” he added.
He went on to discuss the import of “public order” as an exception to the right to freedom of religion under Article 25 of the Constitution, saying,
“A democratic body has taken the decision on it which has representatives of all. They have taken the decision that for public order in a school there should be uniformity in the attire. It is not necessary that order comes only from disorder.”
The Senior Advocate then cited four Supreme Court judgments in which it was held that peaceful existence cannot be threatened by someone else’s right to exercise religion. Concluding his arguments, he said,
“See now, due to this, a right wing faction of Hindus are saying they will wear saffron scarves. Tomorrow, Mohammedan boys will say they want to wear skullcap, where does this end, are we going to polarise society like this?”
Source: Barandbench
