AIMIM, Cong leaders method prime courtroom difficult Waqf invoice

Owaisi, who represents Hyderabad within the Lok Sabha, and Jawed, the Congress whip within the Decrease Home and a member of the joint parliamentary committee on the invoice, individually filed petitions underneath Article 32 of the Structure, urging the Supreme Court docket to strike down the Waqf (Modification) Invoice, 2025.

The petitions argue that the amendments dilute protections underneath Articles 25 and 26 (proper to observe, profess and propagate faith) for the Muslim group whereas retaining them for different non secular teams, thereby violating a string of different basic rights pertaining to equality, dignity and minority rights.

The contentious Waqf (Modification) Invoice, which brings in sweeping modifications within the regulation and administration of Islamic charitable endowments, was handed within the Rajya Sabha within the early hours of Friday, after a marathon debate and a face-off between the federal government and the Opposition. 128 lawmakers voted in favour of the invoice and 95 in opposition to it when the ultimate tally was introduced at 2.35am on Friday.

To make sure, though cleared by each Homes of Parliament, the brand new legislation is but to obtain Presidential assent and are available into power. In a number of earlier instances, the highest courtroom has declined to entertain challenges to legislative provisions that had not but been notified as legislation, holding that such petitions had been untimely. In August 2014, the highest courtroom refused to confess petitions difficult the constitutional modification invoice geared toward making a Nationwide Judicial Appointments Fee (NJAC), saying the invoice had not but obtained presidential assent. In Might 2024, the Supreme Court docket refused to confess a plea difficult the enactment of three new legal legal guidelines, noting that the legal guidelines had been but to return into power.

In response to Owaisi’s plea, the amendments signify a big regression within the progressive growth of waqf legislation, reversing advances made by means of the 1995 act and subsequent amendments, particularly the 2013 reform permitting non-Muslims to create waqfs. The petition notes that the brand new provisions impose arbitrary restrictions, reminiscent of requiring the waqif (the individual creating the waqf) to reveal that they’ve practised Islam for at the very least 5 years, which undermines constitutional ensures of non secular freedom and equality, and discriminates in opposition to latest converts to Islam.

Jawed’s petition echoes these considerations, declaring that Hindu and Sikh non secular trusts are permitted to perform with higher autonomy, whereas the Waqf Modification Act disproportionately will increase state interference in waqf administration. He contends that such selective remedy quantities to manifest arbitrariness and violates the elemental proper to equality underneath Article 14.

The petitioners have additionally raised considerations over the deletion of Part 104 of the Waqf Act, 1995 — thereby barring non-Muslims from creating waqfs — and the derecognition of waqf by person, a precept traditionally acknowledged underneath Islamic legislation.

One other provision underneath problem is Part 3(ix)(b) of the Modification Act, which disallows recognition of waqf property if it was not expressly devoted in writing — an method that, the petitions argue, disregards centuries of oral waqf dedications and undermines the safety of non secular locations used repeatedly for worship.

In addition they opposed the modification mandating the inclusion of non-Muslim members within the Central Waqf Council and State Waqf Boards, arguing this infringes the autonomy of the Muslim group in managing its non secular and charitable properties, opposite to the precedent in Commissioner, Hindu Spiritual Endowments Vs Lakshmindra Thirtha Swamiar of Sri Shirur Mutt (1954), the place the Supreme Court docket held that whereas regulation is permissible, administration should stay with the denomination.

Additional, Owaisi and Jawed challenged Sections 3D and 3E of the amended legislation. Part 3D nullifies waqf declarations over properties categorized as protected monuments underneath the Historical Monuments and Archaeological Websites and Stays Act, 1958. This might have an effect on centuries-old mosques and dargahs and stoke communal tensions, the petitioners contend. Part 3E, in the meantime, bars members of Scheduled Tribes from dedicating waqf property, which the petitions declare is unconstitutional, notably since tribal standing isn’t misplaced upon conversion to Islam.