India’s Supreme Courtroom on Monday refused to remain a regulation cracking down on Muslim charitable trusts, although it suspended among the most controversial components of the laws.
Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist authorities handed the Waqf Modification Act 2025 earlier this yr, claiming it could enhance the administration of waqf properties – non secular and charitable belongings ruled below Muslim private regulation – by addressing bureaucratic gaps, clarifying possession disputes, bettering transparency, and lowering encroachments on public land.
Critics mentioned it was a thinly veiled try and seize Muslim-controlled properties, weaken the autonomy of the 200 million-strong Muslim minority, and improve state management of non secular belongings. They promptly moved the highest courtroom searching for a keep on the modifications.
The amended laws requires all waqf properties to be registered on a centralised digital portal referred to as Umeed – brief for Unified Waqf Administration, Empowerment, Effectivity and Growth – together with data, footage and geotagged areas. Failure to register can result in the property being labeled as “disputed” and referred to a tribunal.
Beforehand, a waqf property may legally be created via formal declaration, endowment after the tip of a succession line or by recognition of its non secular use over time.
The brand new regulation restricts this: solely Muslims who’ve been practising for not less than 5 years and personal the property can declare it waqf. The removing of the “use” provision immediately disqualified undocumented properties from waqf standing.
The amended regulation additionally takes away the waqf board’s authority to find out the possession of disputed waqf land and offers it to a authorities collector.
“The federal government says that disputed land will now be assumed to be authorities property, and it’ll be the collector’s choice. That’s towards pure justice,” Asaduddin Owaisi, a number one Muslim opposition chief and MP, had earlier informed The Unbiased. “How will you be a decide in your individual case?”
A Supreme Courtroom bench led by Chief Justice Bhushan R Gavai suspended the brand new provisions permitting the native collector to find out the possession of a waqf property and replace income data accordingly. It mentioned such an association breached the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers, noting that any dispute over property possession have to be resolved by waqf tribunals or the related excessive courts earlier than affecting third-party rights.
The courtroom additionally stayed the availability requiring that solely people who’ve been practising Islam for not less than 5 years might dedicate a waqf property, pending the creation of state-level guidelines for figuring out an individual’s adherence.
Justice Gavai emphasised that, whereas the rule was not inherently arbitrary, imposing it with out clear mechanisms may result in misuse.
One other contentious modification allowed for the appointment of non-Muslims within the administration of waqf establishments. The unique regulation mandated that each one waqf board members have to be Muslim, together with not less than two girls and elected representatives.
The brand new regulation allows state governments to appoint members, together with non-Muslim lawmakers, judges, and “eminent individuals”. The highest courtroom mentioned the Central Waqf Council shouldn’t embrace greater than 4 non-Muslim members, and state waqf boards not more than three. It advised that the chief executives of waqf boards ought to ideally be Muslim, though this isn’t legally mandated.
Delivering the order, Justice Gavai mentioned the amended regulation loved a presumption of constitutionality, emphasising that solely particular provisions required safety whereas the remainder, together with the necessary registration of waqf properties, may stay in drive.
The courtroom mentioned the registration of waqf properties had been a part of India’s authorized framework in some kind for over a century, tracing again to the Mussalman Wakf Act of 1923 and later the 1954 act.
The petitions difficult the amendments argued that the regulation undermined the constitutional proper of Muslims to handle their non secular properties and discriminated towards the neighborhood by imposing distinctive eligibility standards.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal contended that shifting the burden of registration onto the custodians of waqf properties punished the neighborhood for the state’s historic inaction.
“It’s the failure of the state to hold out their job from 1954 to 2025 – and attributable to their failure, a neighborhood is being punished,” he mentioned.
Different legal professionals warned the regulation may extinguish waqf properties recognised by long-standing utilization or oral custom.
The federal government defended the amendments, with solicitor basic Tushar Mehta saying that permitting “any particular person” to dedicate a waqf, as below the 2013 regulation, was conceptually flawed.
“How can waqf, which is an Islamic idea, be accessible for non-Islamic individuals?” the solicitor basic requested, insisting that the amendments by the Modi authorities had been designed to boost transparency.
Mr Mehta added that restrictions on creating waqfs on tribal land had been meant to guard weak communities.
The bench, nevertheless, expressed scepticism over the rationale saying: “What’s the nexus of not permitting waqf on tribal land? Islam is Islam. Cultural traditions might differ, however faith is similar. If a waqf is sought to be created by fraud or deception, that may in any other case additionally go.”
