By Dr. Gyan Pathak
With the President of India’s assent, the WAQF Amendment Bill 2025 has become an act, but it was promptly challenged in the Supreme Court of India, where the matter was mentioned today April 7, 2025, before the Chief Justice of India for urgent hearing. The petitioners so far have challenged it on various grounds chiefly of its being anti-Islamic, unconstitutional, and violative of the Supreme Court’s judgement on the Ramjanmabhumi-Babri Mosque case.
The WAQF Amendment Bill 2025 was passed in the Lok Sabha in the wee hours of April 3 with 288 members supporting it and 232 against it following a 12-hour debate, while the Rajya Sabha passed it in early hours on April 4 with 128 members voting in favour and 95 opposing it. The Bill was promptly sent to the President of India for approval, who given her assent on April 5.
The WAQF Act 2025 was promptly challenged by several petitioners in the Supreme Court of India. The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi and the Congress MP Mohammad Jawed moved their petitions on April 4, just after its passage in the Parliament of India. Since then, number of petitions have been increasing in numbers.
In the separate petitions, Owaisi and Jawed, have challenged the constitutional validity of the amendments, contending that the changes amount to hostile discrimination against Muslims and infringe upon their fundamental rights. The argued that the amendments dilute protections given under Article 25 and 26 of the Constitution of India. The articles give right to practice, profess and propagate religion. The alleged that the Act diluted the protections for Muslims while retaining them for other religious groups, thereby violating a string of other fundamental rights pertaining to equality, dignity, and minority rights.
In Owaisi’s plea, it was said that the amendments represent a significant regression in the progressive development of waqf law, reversing advances made through the 1995 act and subsequent amendments, especially the 2013 reform allowing non-Muslims to create waqfs. The petition also notes that the new provisions impose arbitrary restrictions, such as requiring the waqif (the person creating the waqf) to demonstrate that they have practised Islam for at least five years, which undermines constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and equality, and discriminates against recent converts to Islam.
While voicing similar concerns, the petitioner Jawed has pointed out that Hindu and Sikh religious trusts are permitted to function with greater autonomy, while WAQF Act disproportionately increases state interference in waqf administration, which violates the fundamental right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
Owaisi and Jawed opposed the amendment mandating the inclusion of non-Muslim members in the Waqf council and boards. They pointed out that the Supreme Court had ruled in Hindu Religious Endowments Vs Lakshmindra Thirtha Swamiar of Sri Shirur Mutt (1954) case that while regulation is permissible, administration must remain with the denomination. Both the petitioners said that nullification of properties classified as protected monuments, such as old-Mosques and Dargahs could be affected, which may stoke communal tensions.
The petitioner Amanatullah Khan of AAP, has alleged that the amendments are “arbitrary” and “unconstitutional”. He said that the law curtails the religious and cultural autonomy of Muslims and enables arbitrary executive interference, along with undermining minority rights.
The petition filed by Maulana Arshad Madani, the President of the Islamic cleric’s body Jamait Ulema-i-Hind has termed the act unconstitutional and destructive to the waqf administration and jurisprudence in India while seeking an interim order to stop operationalization, since its coming into effect after notification, several waqf properties would be vulnerable due to the mandatory timeline for uploading details on the portal and database, especially the historical ones where no written document is available.
Madani pointed out that the act has done away with the concept of “waqf by user”, which ahs long been a rule of evidence in Indian waqf jurisprudence, and was specifically recongised by the Supreme Court in the Ramjanmabhumi-Babri Mosque judgement. He also said that the legislation unconstitutionally interfere in the religious community’s right to manage its own affairs in matters of religion and property by way of making non-Muslim membership mandatory in the WAQF councils and boards.
Samastha Kerala Jamaithul Ulema has alleged that there is an ulterior motif behind this act, and is an attempt to stamp control over huge tract of Waqf property spread across the country. By expanding state control through this law it has breached and earlier Supreme Court’s judgement of 1954 in Ratilal Panachand Gandhi vs the State of Bombay, in which it was held that “transferring control of religious property to secular authorities is an infringement of religious property rights.”
The petitioner has quoted even another Supreme Court judgement of 1998 in Sayyed Ali vs Andhra Pradesh Waqf Board, in which it declared “a Waqf is a property transferred to Allah”, and hence the nature of dedication of movable or immovable property, that is waqf, for a purpose recognized by the Muslim law as pious, religious, or charitable was “permanent” – that is “once a waqf always a waqf.” The new law violates this concept.
Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), an NGO, has said in its petition that the act violates Article 14, 25, 26, and 300 A of the Constitution of India, along with preambular values that constitute the bedrock of our democratic and secular framework.
Many others, including organisations and political parties, have been reported to be planning to challenge the new Waqf legislation, and we may soon see flood gate of petitions opened. Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna has said the he would take a call on listing petitions challenging the waqf law, when it was mentioned before him. (IPA Service)
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