Karnataka High Court Full Bench will continue hearing on a batch of petitions challenging the hijab ban in educational institutions.

The matter is before a bench comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi, Justice Krishna S Dixit and Justice JM Khazi will hear the petitions today at 2.30 PM.

On Friday the Court requested the State to re-open the educational institutions at the earliest and has restrained students from wearing any sort of religious clothes in classrooms, regardless of their faith, while the matter is pending hearing.

Senior advocate Devadatt Kamat appearing on behalf of aggrieved students made extensive arguments on Monday. It is the petitioner's case that the right to wear hijab is an essential religious practice under Islam, and the State is not empowered to interfere with such rights under Articles 14,19 and 25 of the Constitution.

Yesterday, Kamat had underscored that the declaration made by the State government that wearing of a headscarf is not protected by Article 25 of the Constitution was "totally erroneous'. It was also submitted that the conduct of the State government in delegating to the College Development Committee (CDC) to decide whether to allow headscarves or not is 'totally illegal'.