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The father, funded by UK Hindu network Action for Harmony, as his son’s “litigation friend”, is seeking £25,000 in damages from the governing body of Vicar’s Green primary school in Alperton, a state school in Ealing borough, also claiming breach of public sector equality duty and interference with the boy’s Article 9 (freedom of religion) and Article 14 (prohibiting discrimination) ECHR rights. LONDON: The father of a nine-year-old British Indian Hindu boy is suing his son’s former primary school in the high court, King’s Bench Division, for unlawful religious discrimination and harassment for not allowing him to wear a tilak-chandlo at school, a manifestation of his Hindu Swaminarayan faith.
On Dec 12 the boy was removed from the school council, where he was a representative of his class. In Jan 2026 the parents withdrew their child from the school.
“The prohibition on wearing the tilak-chandlo on the claimant’s forehead did not prevent him from practising Hinduism,” the school claims, adding “there were legitimate concerns that acceding to the claimant’s wearing of the tilak-chandlo… might have significant adverse consequences, including a breakdown in pupil cohesiveness”. The school questions whether the boy follows the Swaminarayan Hindu faith, “denies that it is obligatory to daily wear the mark on the middle of the forehead”, and alleges staff suggested the boy wear the symbol “on parts of his body that are covered”, which his parents rejected. His parents wrote to the school saying their son had worn it for four years and there was nothing in the school’s uniform policy prohibiting it. Next the school issued a new uniform policy prohibiting religious symbols. The school, in its defence, disputes the whole claim, denying it unlawfully discriminated against the boy. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.