Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Dec 2: The High Court has dismissed a batch of pleas filed by the tenants of Wakf property seeking quashing of Wakaf Act citing that the disputes relating to Wakf Board is not amenable to writ jurisdiction as for that concerned appellate authority (Wakf Council) is remedy after the J&K Reorganization Act 2019 came into force.
The tenants are holding the property of Wakf on lease and have been held by the Wakf authorities as unauthorized occupants on account of non-renewal of the lease agreements.
Justice M A Chowdhary while refusing to entertain the pleas filed by the aggrieved tenants said that during the pendency of these petitions, with the constitutional changes in Jammu & Kashmir through the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019, certain developments have taken place whereby Jammu & Kashmir Wakaf Act, 2001 has been repealed and the central law on the subject has been made applicable to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
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The counsel for the Wakaf Board submitted at the bar that the Board do not wish to throw out the petitioner-tenants from the property under their occupation and the notices have been issued to them as they had neither come forward to seek renewal of lease deeds nor were ready to accept the revision of rents as determined by a Rent Revision Committee constituted for the purpose by the Wakaf Board whose recommendations were adopted by the Wakf Board.
Justice Chowdhary said that the plea with regard to challenging the vires of the Jammu & Kashmir Wakfs Act, 2001 and its provisions in view of the Act having been repealed has become redundant and infructuous. So far as the notices issued to some of the petitioners are concerned, the same have been issued in terms of Section 45 of the Jammu & Kashmir Wakafs Act, 2001 whereby the occupants of the wakaf property have been directed to show cause within ten days from the date of issuance of the notice against the proposed order of his eviction and to appear before the Administrator of Wakf along with the evidence which they may intend to produce in support of their cases, if any, and on failure to produce the evidence or show cause and/or appear in person on the said date of hearing, further action as warranted under law shall follow without any further notice.
“It has been seen that the occupants of the wakaf property have been paying paltry rents and there is no justification on their part to hold the wakaf properties under their possession, even in prime locations at such rates. The Auqaf, who is custodian of these properties, is well within its right to decide the revision of the rents payable after hearing all the occupants individually, with regard to their claims”, Court said.
Court further added that the Jammu & Kashmir Wakaf Board is stated to have constituted a Rent Revision Committee comprising of senior officials for the properties situated in Kashmir Division which had decided that the revision of the rents of the specified wakaf properties may be re-worked in terms of the PWD Rent Schedule and the market value of the land as notified by the local Deputy Commissioners in the case of Wakaf property situated in their districts. The same arrangement can be considered to be made by the Jammu & Kashmir Wakf Board for its properties.
On questioning the eviction orders by these tenants, the court said alternate and efficacious remedy is available under the Jammu & Kashmir Wakafs Act, 2001 under Section 54 providing for appeal against such orders passed by the Chairman Tehsildar Committee, which can be made to the appellate authority within thirty days of the order.
“The appellate authority has been defined under Section 2 of the Act as Chairperson of the State Wakaf Council, established under Section 7 of the Act, as such, the petitioners cannot maintain writ petitions in view of the alternate and efficacious statutory remedy available to them and can be relegated to the appellate authority in case they choose so protecting them for the period they had spent in prosecuting their petitions before this Court”, read the judgment.
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