The matter arises from a ban in BJP-ruled Karnataka state that forbids college students from carrying the headscarves in school rooms.
A panel of India’s prime court docket says it’s divided on a call to permit hijabs in school rooms and referred the matter to the chief justice, who will arrange a bigger bench to listen to the case.
It arises from a ban in February by the southern state of Karnataka that forbade college students to put on headscarves in school rooms, unleashing protests by Muslim college students and their mother and father, in addition to counterprotests by Hindu college students.
“We’ve got divergence of opinion,” stated Justice Hemant Gupta, one of many two panel judges, as he delivered Thursday’s choice, however the judges didn’t say when the bigger bench can be arrange, or when the subsequent listening to can be held.
“It’s finally a matter of selection,” stated the opposite choose, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, as he put aside the Karnataka Excessive Court docket order.
Muslims are a sizeable minority in India, accounting for 14 p.c of the nation’s 1.4 billion inhabitants within the South Asian nation the place Hindus make up the bulk.
Some Muslim college students challenged within the Supreme Court docket a ruling by a state court docket that upheld the ban in March.
“It’s a break up verdict. The case has not ended. The matter has been referred to the chief justice who will represent a bigger bench. That is progress from what we received from the Karnataka Excessive Court docket,” Anas Tanwir, a lawyer representing the Muslim ladies, informed Al Jazeera.
The difficulty of the hijab ban began when feminine Muslim college students carrying hijab had been barred in January this yr from coming into their school rooms at a authorities faculty in Karnataka’s Udupi district. Subsequently, extra instructional establishments throughout the state banned Muslim ladies from carrying the headscarves.
The scholars approached the Karnataka Excessive Court docket on March 15, which upheld the ban and dominated that “carrying of hijab by Muslim ladies doesn’t kind part of important non secular observe within the Islamic religion”.
The scholars then approached the Supreme Court docket, difficult the decrease court docket’s verdict.
Critics of the hijab ban say it’s one other method of marginalising a neighborhood, and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP), which guidelines Karnataka, may gain advantage from the polarisation.
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