Delhi High Court seeks Centre’s stand on petition against validity of Waqf Act 

NEW DELHI:  The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the stand of the Centre and the Central Waqf Council on a PIL seeking to declare that the Waqf Act is in violation of the Constitution and that private properties of citizens can only be governed by a Uniform Civil Code.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla issued notice on the petition by DN Tripathi and granted time to the respondents to file their response. The petitioner claimed that the Union of India does not have the legislative competence to make laws concerning ‘Waqf’ and religious properties at the exclusion of Non-Muslim citizens of the country and a welfare state is duty-bound to provide equal social, economic, political and religious freedom and opportunities to every citizen and laws like Waqf Act have no place.

‘‘The Waqf Act is arbitrary as the legislature doesn’t have the required competence to make such laws under entry 10 or 28 of the Concurrent-list of 7th Schedule and therefore the same must be struck-down...,” the petition said. ‘‘A welfare state managing the religious Waqf properties is a direct violation of the scheme of the Constitution and more particularly Articles 14, 15 & 21 of the Constitution, apart from in breach of the Preamble.’’

It further said that the management of Waqf properties is essentially done on religious lines and the state is not permitted to regulate the same for one religion in exclusion of others. The petitioner also argued that the creation of the Waqf Tribunal for religious properties of Muslims is arbitrary. 

List of waqf board properties massive 
As per the Waqf Managemen System of India, various state waqf boards owned more than 6.1 lak immovable properties way back in January 2010. Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnataka accounted for nearly half of the properties owned by the waqf boards across the country.