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NEW DELHI: CJI Sanjiv Khanna on Monday passed the baton to incoming CJI B R Gavai for deciding the validity of the contentious Waqf Amendment Act, 2025, and said certain points and figures about waqf properties raised in the affidavit filed by the Centre to oppose the plea for pausing the law needed detailed hearing even for the purpose of passing interim orders.
Heading a bench also comprising Justices Sanjay Kumar and K V Viswanathan, CJI Khanna at the outset, with the consent of counsel for the rival sides, referred the bunch of petitions challenging the Act to CJI-designate Gavai and fixed hearing for May 15, a day after the new CJI takes oath. CJI Khanna retires on May 13.
CJI Khanna told solicitor general Tushar Mehta that the court had gone through, even if not minutely, the Union govt’s preliminary response to the petitions. “The govt has raised certain points with regard to registration of land (for a valid waqf) and some figures about waqf properties. These require some consideration. There are some aspects, which require clarification also,” he said.
Mehta said the govt had answers to every apprehension expressed by the petitioners and that the Act was intended to benefit individuals in the Muslim community and streamline the management of huge waqf properties. Lead counsel for the Muslim side, senior advocate Kapil Sibal who had pressed for the law to be stayed, responded sarcastically, “He has an answer for everything.”
The CJI brought this to an abrupt end by informing the counsel that he did not want to reserve any judgment, or even an interim order for that matter.
Don’t want to reserve any judgment: Outgoing CJI
Tushar Mehta said govt had answers to every apprehension expressed by the petitioners and that the Act was intended to benefit individuals in the Muslim community and streamline the management of huge waqf properties. Lead counsel for the Muslim side, senior advocate Kapil Sibal who had pressed for the law to be stayed, responded sarcastically, “He has an answer for everything.”
The CJI brought this to an abrupt end by informing the counsel that he did not want to reserve any judgment, or even an interim order for that matter. “This matter requires a detailed hearing even for the purpose of weighing the arguments for the purpose of passing an interim order,” he said and suggested May 15 as the next date of hearing.
“The matter is voluminous and I want the judges in the bench headed by CJI-designate Gavai to get some time to read the petitions and the counter affidavit,” the CJI said. On April 17, Mehta had pre-empted the SC from staying certain provisions of the law by assuring that the Centre would make no appointments to the Central Waqf Council and Auqaf Boards and maintain status quo on waqfs, including ‘waqf by user’, already registered or declared under the Waqf Act, 1995.
Defending the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025 as a secular law, Centre in its 1,332-page response, which included 1,100 pages of documents, had said the objection to mandatory registration of waqf properties, including ‘waqf by user’, was baseless as it had been in vogue for more than 100 years. It had also given data about huge increase in waqf properties in the last 12 years.
All India Muslim Personal Law Board, in its rejoinder affidavit, accused Centre of misleading the SC by giving figures of properties which though were part of waqf prior to 2013 but had not been entered in the centralised portal, Waqf Management System of India.
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