Uniform violation: No legal provision for penalty, argue students

The student-petitioners who challenged the ban on wearing Hijab in educational institutions on Thursday told the Karnataka High Court that the Karnataka Education Act-1983 does not have any provision of penalty for infraction of uniform.

Advocate Sanjay Hegde, who appeared on behalf of students from Kundapura before the full bench of the Karnataka High Court, said the penalty clause prescribed in the KEA-1983 largely restricted to college management.

He said the Act has provision to impose fine for copying, malpractices and loitering. "There is, however, no penalty for infraction of uniform," Hegde contended before the full-bench. The bench was constituted on Wednesday night to hear the Hijab case after the single bench of Justice Dixit referred it to the CJ saying a larger bench may hear it.

According to Hegde, the petitioners have been wearing their regular head scarves along with their uniform but the college management insisted that they should remove it to attend classes. Since December the petitioners have faced discrimination and they were made to stand out of the class though his clients said head scarves were their religious practice, Hegde argued.

Advocate General Prabhuling Navadgi pointed out that after the girls started coming to the colleges wearing hijab, some other students started coming wearing saffron shawls leading to chaos.

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