New Delhi: Wearing Hijab is “farz” (duty) in accordance with the religious texts and the courts are not equipped to determine its essentiality, the petitioners told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The issue came up when the apex court was hearing submissions on the fifth day against the High Court’s judgement of March 15 this year, upholding the ban on Hijab in pre-university colleges.
Representing some petitioners, senior lawyer Rajeev Dhavan submitted before a bench comprising Justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia that once it was shown that wearing a Hijab was a bona fide practice, and then it was allowed. He cited the apex court’s decision in connection with the Bijoe Emmanuel case to support his point. According to the lawyer, the conclusion of the Karnataka High Court has been a puzzle, which said that Hijab was not mandatory because of the absence of penalties.
The bench wanted to know from Dhava that his argument was that the courts are not equipped to decide the matter, and if a dispute arises, which forum will decide it? Then Dhavan enquired what the dispute was and whether wearing Hijab was an essential practice. He said that Hijab was worn across the country, and as long as it was bona fide, it should be allowed, and there is no need to allude to religious texts.
Dhavan argued that according to the tenets of the faith, if something has been followed, it was allowed, and if it was bona fide, there was no need to go back to the text. Also, if a belief of a community was proved then a judge was bound to accept that belief, instead of sitting on a judgment on that belie
