Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 12: The tenants of Auqaf properties especially the shopkeepers running their commercial establishments at Auqaf Market Gandhinagar, Talab Khatikan, Gujjar Nagar, Lakhdata Bazaar, Peer Mitha, Ustad Mohalla, Kunjwani, Akhnoor and other places staged a strong protest against the decision of the Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board arbitrarily enhancing the rent of the tenants holding its properties for business and other purposes.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Waqf Board Jammu has dropped a big bombshell vide its letter number: WB-J/02/1622 dated 26-09-2022 steeply enhancing the rent to Rs 11600.
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Hundreds of Auqaf tenants assembled here at the Press Club Jammu and raised vociferous slogans against the Waqf Board’s decision demanding its immediate rollback saying that the letter regarding rent assessment is in complete violation of law.
The spokesperson of the Auqaf tenants said that the Auqaftenants have been regularly paying the rents as per the previous agreement with the Waqf but this time the Board without deliberating the matter with the priority stakeholders i.e. the tenants, has arbitrarily raised the rent from Rs 5500 to Rs 11600 which is going to destabilize the shopkeepers’ budgets leading them to penury.
He said that these premises were initially allotted to them as tenants in 1985 through open auction against an amount of Rs 42000 each with a rent of Rs 300 per month and subsequently the rent was increased periodically from time to time. However, after taking up the issue with the Advisor I/c Auqaf, the Government issued Order Number SWC /CEO/ 116/316 dated 20-12-2018 through the Waqf Council wherein Administrator Auqaf was instructed to enhance the rent every two years instead of the previous practice of eleven months. He alleged that in a blatant violation of the order, the Administrator refused to implement it and enhanced the rent to about Rs 5500 per month.
Demanding immediate rollback of rent enhancement letter, the Auqaf tenants’ spokesperson warned to launch an intense agitation against the arbitrary order while adding that the entire responsibility as to the consequences of the same shall be that of Waqf Board and the Administration.
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