SC grants Centre 7 days to reply to pleas
New Delhi, April 17: The Centre on Thursday assured the Supreme Court that it will neither denotify waqf properties, including “waqf by user”, nor make any appointments to the central waqf council and boards till May 5.
The assurance of solicitor general Tushar Mehta came when he informed a bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and K V Viswanathan that the waqf law was passed by Parliament with “due deliberations” and it should not be stayed without hearing the government.
The Centre also strongly opposed the apex court’s proposal to pass an interim order against the denotification of waqf properties, including ‘waqf by user’, aside from staying a provision allowing the inclusion of non-Muslims in the central waqf councils and boards.
“During the course of hearing, the solicitor general states that the respondent (Union of India) would like to put in a short response within seven days. He further states and assures that till the next date of hearing, no appointments will be made to the council and boards under sections 9 and 14 (of the Act),” the bench said.
The bench noted Mehta, appearing for the Centre, has also said that till the next date of hearing, waqf properties, including ‘waqf by user’ already registered or declared by way of notification, shall not be disturbed and denotified.
The bench then granted a week’s time to the Centre to file a preliminary response to the pleas challenging the validity of the contentious Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 and posted the matter on May 5.
“If your lordships will say something about ‘waqf by user’, what will be the fallout?” Mehta said.
He added, “We, as a government, and Parliament, are answerable to the people.” The CJI said if the registration of any waqf property had taken place under the erstwhile 1995 Act, then those properties can’t be denotified till further hearing.
The apex court, while hearing the matter on Wednesday, proposed to stay certain key provisions of the Act, including the power to denotify properties declared as waqf by courts and inclusion of non-Muslims in central waqf council and boards.
On Thursday, Mehta asked whether the court might consider staying, directly or indirectly, the Act based upon some prima facie or tentative reading of some of the sections.
“If your lordships are going to stay a statutory provision,” Mehta said, “it by itself is rare. We will have to take your lordships to the history of legislation, followed by amendment”.
He said the government received several representations, which ultimately resulted into the amended Act.
Opposing the stay, the law officer referred to certain instances and said private properties were usurped as waqf in several places.
Terming it a “considered piece of legislation”, Mehta said the pleas were filed before the Presidential assent and taken immediately by the bench.
“We are not deciding the matter finally,” the bench said. (PTI)
Muslim delegation lauds Waqf (Amendment) Act
A delegation of Dawoodi Bohras met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to express their gratefulness to him for the Waqf (Amendment) Act, which has accommodated some of their key demands.
Officials said the community members told Modi that it was their long-pending demand as they reposed faith in his vision of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas’.
They were accompanied by Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju in the meeting.
In a post on X, Modi said, “Had a wonderful meeting with members of the Dawoodi Bohra community! We talked about a wide range of issues during the interaction.”
In the interaction, a community member told Modi that they had been seeking exemption from the Waqf regulations since 1923 and lauded him for taking care of the “minority within a minority” with the new law that allows them to opt-out.
Another member said their community had bought an expensive property for a project in Bhindi Bazaar, a market in Mumbai, in 2015 and then someone from Nasik laid claim over it as a Waqf property in 2019. His government, he told the prime minister, has put a stop to such a practice. (PTI)