Hijab is a Muslim woman’s self-expression. She cannot be compelled by the state to shed her persona at the gates of her college, senior advocate Kapil Sibal told the Supreme Court on Thursday.
“As Polonius said in ‘Hamlet’, ‘clothes maketh the man’. Wearing hijab is an expression of what you are, where you are from, who you are. It is an expression of the self,” Mr. Sibal argued before a Bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia.
The senior counsel, appearing for a student-petitioner against Karnataka’s ban on wearing hijab in classrooms, said the Supreme Court should refer the case to a Constitution Bench, which should in turn first decide whether “wearing a dress is self-expression, which lies both at the heart of the fundamental rights of privacy and freedom of expression”. Hijab can be given the same protection as Sikh turbans and kirpans. Senior advocate Dushyant Dave too pushed for the court to refer the case to a Constitution Bench.
