Senior advocate Devadutt Kamat, appearing for a group of Muslim girls from coastal Karnataka, on Tuesday urged the Karnataka High Court not to continue with its interim order, and allow the students to wear hijabs (head scarf) matching the colour of their prescribed school uniforms.

The interim order, issued last week, prohibits students in schools with prescribed student uniform, not to wear any religious dress till the court decides on the petitions challenging the February 5 notification on student uniform.

Wearing Hijab is an essential religious practice under the Islam, Kamat argued, and said suspension of the same, even for a few hours during the school, undermines the community’s faith and violates their fundamental rights under Article 19 and 25 of the Constitution, he told a told a bench headed by Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and consisting also of Justices Krishna S Dixit and Khazi Jaibunnisa Mohiuddin.

India, he said, practiced a kind of secularism that is different from what is practiced in a few other countries. Hijab, he argued, is not a display of religious identity. It is a practice of faith. Nobody wears a shawl to counter that, he said.

India’s secularism, he said, is a positive one where the state plays an enabling role to exercise fundamental rights and religious freedoms of all communities. It recognises all religions as true, Kamat said, and cited a South African court judgment which set aside the expulsion of a Hindu girl with roots in South India for wearing a nose ring in school.

On Tuesday too, instances of authorities denying entry to students with hijab continued at different schools. While students obeyed in some places respecting the interim order of the High Court, at one school in Mandya district, father took his daughter back, displeased with the authorities’ request.

In Dharwad, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi urged all political parties, including the BJP, to make their stand on hijab clear in the ongoing legislature session. Karnataka was known for communal harmony, and some people have instigated the recent events to malign India’s name, he said.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai government was dealing with the issue in Karnataka very effectively and everyone should respect the court’s orders, he said.