The Delhi Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution seeking a magisterial probe and an inquiry by the Bar Council of India into the issue of lawyers of the Delhi Waqf Board failing to appear, leading to it lose 36 cases.
Additional inquiries
While adopting the report of the Questions and Reference Committee into the illegal sale of dargah land, the Assembly also recommended the additional inquiries.
According to the report of the committee, which is chaired by Deputy Speaker Rakhi Birla, a caretaker and a section officer of the Delhi Waqf Board illegally sold land of a dargah in Chirag Delhi. The committee recommended criminal proceedings against the officials responsible.
During the discussion on the report, Revenue Minister Kailash Gahlot said Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal had not appointed the Delhi Waqf Board despite the process having been completed.
The Minister said he appealed to the L-G to appoint the Board, apart from one member, whose nomination has been stayed by the High Court.
Though he had not attended the Assembly session, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a tweet that the L-G should “permit constitution of Delhi Waqf Board” to prevent wrongdoings.
Mr. Gahlot added that in the absence of a full board and chairperson, the Delhi Waqf Board had been unable to even pay the salaries of imams.
He said when AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan was the chairperson of the Board till October 2016, the rental income of the Board had reached ₹1 crore.
‘Land grabbing’
Earlier, referring to the case of the illegal sale of some land of the dargah of Naseeruddin Aulia, MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj said it was just one case of “land grabbing”.
