Melbourne:
A Sikh family in Australia on Tuesday won a
legal battle against a Christian school which refused to enrol their
five-year-old son because of his turban.
Sidhak Singh Arora was due to start preparatory at Melton Christian College (MCC) in Melbourne’s north-west, this year.
But his patka (children’s turban) does not
comply with the school’s uniform policy which prohibits students from
wearing any type of religious head covering.
Sagardeep Singh Arora and his wife Anureet said
the school breached the Equal Opportunity Act by not allowing Sidhak to
wear a patka when they tried to enrol him in 2016, Herald Sun reported.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) ruled in the
parents’ favour, finding the school had discriminated against Sidhak, it
said.
“Whilst MCC is a Christian school, it has an open enrolment policy which
means that it accepts enrolments of students from other faiths,” VCAT
member Julie Grainger found