HC sets aside waqf board order, tells them to approach tribunal

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru

The Karnataka High Court declared invalid an order passed by the state waqf board recalling an order passed in 1976 by then administrator of the body. It is to be noted that there had been no Karnataka State Board of Auqaf (KSBA) and instead an administrator appointed by the State government would take care of the affairs pertaining to waqf lands, reports Live Law. The administrator had in 1976 given up claim to a plot in Kumbarpet in Bengaluru city and declared it private property and not waqf. Waqf is an endowment made in the name of God by a Muslim for charitable purposes. It is usually land.

The plural of waqf is auqaf. Waqf properties are administered by state waqf boards and one of their key jobs is to recover waqf lands that have been encroached. The KSBA in 2020 constituted a law committee that held the relevant plot in Kumbarpet was in fact waqf and not private property. The petitioner Jabir Ali Khan approached the court and claimed that the revision of the 1976 order was not sound under law. Justice MGS Kamal allowed the petition and declared that the actions of the law committee were outside of the purview of the Waqf Act, 1995. He also ordered that the board approach the Karnataka Waqf Tribunal instead to sort out the matter.

“Karnataka State Waqf Board has proceeded to constitute the present Law Committee to annul the order passed by the Administrator on the premise of the principles ‘once a waqf is always a waqf ’ and not on the allegation of any fraud, misrepresentation or misleading,” the bench said. “Assuming if the order passed by the Administrator is a nullity and void-abinitio, until and unless the same is set aside by an order of a court of competent jurisdiction, the same continues to be in force,” the judge added.