The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to the plea for urgent listing of a petition filed by nine Muslim students challenging a Bombay High Court order that had upheld a Mumbai college's decision to ban hijab, burqa or other attire that reveals the religious identity of a person.

“I have already assigned a bench to hear the matter and it would be listed soon,” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a bench, told an advocate appearing for the students.

The counsel requested an early hearing of the matter during the morning mentioning time before the bench, which included Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra. The advocate pleaded that since the units of the students were to commence shortly, the SC should take up the matter for urgent listing.

Students Zainab Abdul Qayyum and others had filed the present appeal against a Bombay High Court judgment of June 26 by which it had upheld the decision of N.G. Acharya and D.K. Marathe to ban students from wearing hijabs, nakabs, burqas, stole, or caps that reveal the religious identity of the students.

A two-judge division bench of the high court upheld the ban on the ground that the rules were enacted to enforce certain discipline among the students and the management was well within its right to enforce such rules under its fundamental right to establish and administer an educational institution.

Aggrieved, the students had filed the present appeal on the ground that the impugned rules infringe upon their fundamental right to choose their dress and their right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19 (1)(a) besides their right to practice and profess one’s religion under Article 25.

On October 13, 2022, a two-judge bench of the SC delivered a split verdict on the issue of whether wearing of hijab or other religious identity by students in educational institutions of Karnataka is part of a citizen’s fundamental right as Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia took diametrically opposite views.

Justice Gupta, heading the bench, had upheld the ban imposed by the Karnataka government, saying: “Fraternity would be defeated if students are permitted to carry their apparent religious symbols with them to the classroom.” Quashing the ban as “unconstitutional", Justice Dhulia had said: “All the petitioners want is to wear a hijab. Is it too much to ask in a democracy?”