New Delhi: A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the various provisions of the Waqf Act,1995 and certain provisions of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, alleging discrimination against other communities and demanding equal status and safeguards for their properties.
The PIL filed by one Parul Khera said that provisions in the 1995 Act grant special status to Waqf properties denying same status to Trust, Mutts, Akharas and societies and confer unguided and unchecked powers to Waqf Boards to register any property as Waqf property.
The Act 1995 runs counter to the equality clause and concept of a Secular State, it said.
The conferment of special rights, status and power to Waqf property and Waqf Board is in violation of provisions contained in Article 14, 15, 25, 300-A and 323-A of the Constitution of India.
“In the Act, there is no safeguard for Hindus and non-Islamic communities to save their religious and private properties from being included in the list of Waqf issued by the government or by the Waqf Boards and Hindu and other religious communities are being discriminated and the impugned provisions violate Articles 14,15,25,27 and 300-A of the Constitution of India,” said the plea. In the last 10 years Waqf Boards have rapidly captured the lands of others and declared those properties as Waqf property, the plea stated.
“It is relevant to mention that the Union Minister for Minority Affairs in reply to Rajya Sabha on February 7, 2022, informed that there was a total of 7,85,934 immovable properties which have been registered on the portal,” it added.
It further said that the Sachar Committee in its report had confirmed that there were about 4.9 lakh registered Waqf property comprising of about 6 lakh acres. (IANS)
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