Councillor’s letter on religious attire has no official value: Officials

Several experts have called the controversy over a letter by the Dwarka South councillor Nitika Sharma to the civic body’s education department, seeking to ban “religious attire” in civic schools, a non-issue, pointing out that the letter held no official value and that such rules can only be issued by the education department.

In the letter, Sharma, the chairperson of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s education committee, asked the education director to instruct all zonal officials to not allow students to don “religious attire” in the civic body’s primary schools. To be sure, such an order has not been issued by either the civic body, or its education department.

The development comes after the father of a Class 6 student alleged earlier this week she was humiliated by authorities in a government school in north-east Delhi’s Mustafabad for wearing the hijab to school. The principal of the school had denied the claim. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday told reporters that the state government’s education department had not issued any such orders.

Multiple senior education officials from SDMC, who asked not to be named, on Friday clarified that the department had not issued any formal order in the matter and that Sharma’s letter itself does not carry any executive force. “We run primary schools up to Class 5, and the children are so young that this issue does not impact us... We do not want to create a controversy where none exists,” an official of the education department said.

SDMC commissioner Gyanesh Bhartidid not respond to HT’s requests for comment.

The Karnataka high court is currently hearing a petition by some students against a state government order against allowing the hijab in classrooms.