The BJP-led NDA government is reportedly set to amend the Waqf Act to restrict the powers of the Waqf Board and is ready to table the amendments in Parliament. In a bid To allay the fears that is being created by several quarters from the minority population that the bill will snatch away the rights of the minorities, the upcoming legislation will only be pro-Muslim, said government sources.
Sources aware of the development said that many poor Muslims and Muslim women in particular have reached out to the government for justice. They have also expressed as to how these properties have been under the control of the very powerful and there is nobody who has even thought of the miseries of the common man.
The act was first brought in 1954 was amended in 1995 and then in 2013. In the earlier form, the word of the tribunal was final and binding, but now with the new amendment proposed anybody who wants to go further can approach a High Court in case of any dispute.
“There is no intention whatsoever from the government to take away these properties from the Muslims, Eventually, these properties can be used only for benefiting the Muslim community. What is being brought in is a systematic procedure in place so that it’s benefit can reach to the poorest of the poor,” a top government source told Network 18.
After the lands that are owned by government entities, including railways and defence, Waqf accounts for the third highest number of properties. However, the revenue coming from such properties does not even stand anywhere close to the price of these properties. In fact, the revenue per year does not even cross 200 crore. “Provision is being made in the new law to map each property with the district collector so that the revenue can be eventually be accounted for,” a source said. Use of technology and online mechanism to register such properties will bring down any such errors.
The Sachar Committee in its recommendation, has also spoken about the need to map properties along with their revenue. In another forward-looking step government sources informed that opposed to the last form of the bill. This time around only practicing members can be on the board and can have such properties.
Several Muslim clerics and Muslim leaders have come out in opposition of this law. They have also called the government, anti-Muslim.
Sources in the government said that many Muslim persons within the legal fraternity have also called this bill as a “forward-looking reform” and said that it will break from the anarchic laws that ensured nothing for the poor and deprived.
Government sources also said that parties like the Congress, which ruled the country for the longest, in March 2014, just before the Lok Sabha gifted 123 prime properties in the national capital to the Delhi Waqf Board.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the first right of resources of India was with the minority especially Muslims. He further during the launching the National Waqf Development Corporation Limited, in 2014 said the properties under the Waqf board can be used for the socio-economic development and benefit the Muslim community. “Has there been any accountability regarding the usage of resources by the Waqf board?” Government sources stated.
In 2022, an RTI response revealed that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP government has given over Rs 101 crore of public funds to the Delhi Waqf board since coming to power in 2015 and Rs 62.57 crore alone was given in 2021.
Arvind Kejriwal in 2019 went on and said “It is said that the residence of the richest person of this country, which is inside Mumbai, has been built on a waqf property. I’m not saying wrong, right? The government of Mumbai can’t do anything about that. Had it been our government, we would have demolished the construction.”
The Waqf board in Tamil Nadu has recently claimed ownership of an entire village taking the villagers by shock. The village had a 1500-year old Hindu temple as well.
Jathlana village in Haryana’s Yamunanagardistrict witnessed the overriding powers of the Waqf, when a land parcel with a Gurdwara (Sikh Temple) was transferred to the Waqf. The land had no history of any Muslim settlement or mosque being there.
In November 2021, the Surat Municipal Corporation headquarters at Muglisara had been declared waqf property. The logic given was that during the reign of Shah Jahan, the property had been donated by the emperor to his daughter as a Waqf property, and therefore, the claim could be justified even today, almost 400 years later.
In 2018, the Sunni Waqf Board stated, before the apex court, that the Taj Mahal is owned by the Almighty but must be listed as property of the Sunni Waqf Board for practical purposes. On being asked by the apex court to furnish the signed documents from Shah Jahan, this body claimed that the monument belonged to Almighty, and while they had no signed documents, they must be given the rights to the property.
In 2022, the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board claimed that the disputed property upon which the Gyanvyapi Masjid stands today is a Waqf property. The counsel for the temple side discarded this claim before the court.
A Shivalay in Lucknow had been registered as a Waqf property in collusion with the Uttar Pradesh Shia Central Waqf Board.Even though the Shivalay has been documented in the state records, going back as far as 1862, and the Shia Central Waqf Board came into existence in 1908, the claims were furthered.
In 2021, Waqf Board had written an application to Gujarat High Court claiming ownership of two islands in Bet Dwarka in Devbhoomi Dwarka. In 2022, the Gujarat High Court rejected that plea.
In August 2014, the Wakf Board sent a notice to the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) claiming ownership of a disputed piece of land near Jalna road and urging it to halt the process of obtaining the land from another party for road widening.
In 2013, Telangana Waqf Board opposed the Hyderabad municipal corporation’s move to acquire a portion of land belonging to the green mosque in the city’s Banjara Hill for road widening. The board contested that the land was a Waqf property.
Pointing to the actual extent of waqf lands being much greater than those that have been recorded, a pilot project launched by the state government had detected over 1,700 new waqf properties in just two districts of Pune and Parbhani in November 2018.
In 2019, in a written reply to BJP MP Ajay Nishad’s question, Minorities Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told the Lok Sabha that a total of 16,937 Waqf Board properties were under encroachment in the country, including 5,610 in Punjab, the highest state with encroachments in the country.
In 2017, Maharashtra government, under the BJP, had suspended a former head of a Muslim organisation in charge of land endowments, amid growing concern that “waqf” land and property set aside for religious or charitable use is being illegally sold on to developers. Waqf is an endowment of land or property by a Muslim for a religious, educational or charitable purpose. Under Indian law, it cannot be transferred or sold, and must be used for the community’s welfare.
In 2024, The Delhi High Court observed unauthorised constructions in disputed Waqf properties. The high court flagged the issue relating to the dispute about 123 properties, on which the Delhi Waqf Board laid its claim while the Centre had de-listed them.
In January 2024, the Waqf Board filed a special petition in the SC claiming ownership on some portion of the land, which the Uttarakhand high court had declared to be that of the Railways, in Banbhulpura area of Haldwani in Nainital district.
The Abdullah Government, in August 2014, stated that more than 360 kanals of Waqf land of commercial value is under the Army’s possession in the border district of Poonch out of which the Army is paying rent for only 21 kanals. Such was the political capital of the influence, backed by the local leaders, that the priorities of the army were sidelined to appease the fundamentalists.
On Friday, the Union Cabinet approved around 40 amendments to the Wakf Act. On Friday, the Union Cabinet approved around 40 amendments to the Wakf Act. Wakf Boards have approximately over 8.7 lakh properties totaling around 9.4 lakh acres. In 2013, the UPA government had given more powers to the Wakf Boards by amending the original Act.
The Wakf Act, 1995, was enacted to regulate ‘auqaf’ (assets donated and notified as wakf) by a wakif—the person who dedicates a property for any purpose recognised by Muslim law as pious, religious, or charitable.
