The High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday declared that prescription of uniforms in schools does not violate the right to freedom of speech and expression or the right to privacy of the students guaranteed in the Constitution of India.
Observing that school uniforms promote harmony and spirit of common brotherhood transcending religious or sectional diversities, the court also said that “there is absolutely no scope for complaint of manifest arbitrariness or discrimination as per Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution, when the dress code is equally applicable to all the students, regardless of religion, language, gender or the like.”
A three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justice Krishna S. Dixit and Justice J.M. Khazi made these observations while holding that restriction against wearing of hijab in educational institutions is only a reasonable restriction constitutionally permissible, which the students cannot object to.
The Bench also said that the State Government and the school authorities have power in law to prescribe uniforms.
The prescription of dress code for students, that too within the four walls of the classroom as distinguished from rest of the school premises, does not offend constitutionally protected category of rights, when they are ‘religion-neutral’ and ‘universally applicable’ to all the students,” the Bench said.
“The idea of schooling is incomplete without teachers, taught and the dress code. Collectively, they make a singularity. No reasonable mind can imagine a school without uniform. After all, the concept of school uniform is not of a nascent origin. It is not that, Moghuls or Britishers brought it here for the first time. It has been there since the ancient gurukul days,” the Bench said, while referring to articles of law by various American and British writers on essentialness of uniform in schools..
KV model not acceptable
On petitioners’ contention that wearing of hijab is part of dress code/uniform is permitted in Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs), the Bench said that it was not impressed by this argument.
“Firstly, such a proposal if accepted, the school uniform ceases to be uniform. There shall be two categories of girl students viz., those who wear the uniform with hijab and those who do it without. That would establish a sense of ‘social-separateness’, which is not desirable. It also offends the feel of uniformity which the dress code is designed to bring about amongst all the students regardless of their religion and faiths,” the Bench observed.
Pointing out that the statutory scheme militates against sectarianism of every kind, the bench, therefore, said the accommodation [on the line of KV] which the petitioners seek cannot be said to be reasonable. The object of prescribing uniform will be defeated if there is non-uniformity in the matter of uniforms.”
What KVs prescribe as uniform/dress code is left to the policy of the Central Government, the Bench said that it is not mandatory for the States to follow it.
“Prescription of school dress code to the exclusion of hijab, bhagwa, or any other apparel symbolic of religion can be a step forward in the direction of emancipation and more particularly, to the access to education. It hardly needs to be stated that this does not rob off the autonomy of women or their right to education inasmuch as they can wear any apparel of their choice outside the classroom, the Bench observed.
It also said that no case has been made out to initiate disciplinary enquiry against the authorities of the Government Pre-University College for Girls, Udupi, and the office-bearers of its College Development Committee, including its president Udupi MLA Raghupathi Bhat, for preventing five petitioner-girl students of the college from entering the classroom wearing the hijab.
‘Unseen hands’
“The way hijab imbroglio unfolded gives scope for the argument that some ‘unseen hands’ are at work to engineer social unrest and disharmony,” the High Court Bench said, while declining to comment more on the Udupi incidents as investigation was underway.
“We are dismayed as to how all of a sudden, that too in the middle of the academic term, the issue of hijab generated and was blown out of proportion by the powers that be,” the Bench said, while noticing that all was well with the dress code since 2004 in Udupi college.
The Bench said that it expected a speedy and effective investigation into the matter.
