New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday proposed to begin the hearing by a series of petitions that challenged the constitutional validity of the WAQF (Amendment) Act, and proposed on Wednesday to pass an interim order that the properties declared as WAQF, including “User WAQF”, will not be stated. The Centre objected to the proposal and sought a hearing before such a directive.
Please note the provisions of the WAQF Act objections and express reservations to several aspects of the law, including the inclusion of non-Muslims on the Central WAQF Commission and the State WAQF Board, CJI Sanjiv Khanna proposed to issue a notice and pass an interim order indicating “balance of public good.” The Chief Justice of India observed that certain provisions could have “serious consequences”, especially those that could undermine judicially endorsed WAQF property, and the Chief Justice of India made an order.
CJI proposes: “Whether it is declared by the user ‘WAQF’ or ‘WAQF by Deed’ as the property of WAQFS, while the court is hearing the WAQF Amendment 2025 challenge.”
The bench also implied that the provisions of the amended law were retained, which said that during the collector’s inquiry, the WAQF property will not be considered as a WAQF to determine whether the property is government land.
The Supreme Court also objected to the provisions that enable regional collectors to rule on disputes related to WAQF property and to allow representations that a valid court declared as a property in WAQF.
“Usually, the court does not intervene when passing the law. However, there may be exceptions in this case. If property declared as WAQF is expressed as an order, it may have serious impacts.”
The Supreme Court will continue to hear the matter on Thursday, and also asked the center if it is willing to allow Muslims to become part of the Hindu religious trust. The Supreme Court also expressed concern about the violence after the law was made, calling it “very disturbing.”
The judge, composed of CJI and Justices Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan, said: “The property declared by the court as WAQFS should not be expressed as WAQFS.”
