Why is Waqf back in the news?

The world’s costliest home in south Mumbai, the 27-storeyed Antilla, is allegedly built on litigated Waqf property. The Vidhan Bhavan in Lucknow, which houses the Uttar Pradesh legislature, stands on Waqf land, it is widely believed. On July 21, the Lok Sabha was informed in a written reply that as many as seven Waqf properties in Uttar Pradesh house government offices, among them Bapu Bhavan, which has the state secretariat, and Sahakarita Bhavan, which has the department of cooperatives among other offices..

Ask non-Muslims, though, what waqf is and chances are they don’t have the faintest idea. The word literally means ‘dedicated’; Muslims dedicate a part of their property for charitable or religious purposes as ‘waqf ’ in the service of Allah and for public good. It typically involves donating a plot of land, building or other assets for religious or charitable purposes. Once thus ‘dedicated’, the waqf becomes irreversible and a charitable trust will usually manage/hold the donated assets.

Waqf Boards were set up in the states and a Waqf Council at the Centre to monitor their registration and regulate their use. Graveyards, mosques, madrasas, orphanages, hospitals, clinics and educational institutions are set up on the waqf land or structures with revenue proceeds from these properties. Practically all charitable institutions including hospitals and educational institutions are open to all communities for use.

In recent years, Waqf bodies have been in the news due to a well-planned campaign to discredit them and their work. Talks, video chats and blogs on social media try to give the false impression that Waqf Boards have the power to lay claims to anyone’s (read: Hindu) property as Waqf; that a member of the Waqf Board can visit any property and claim it to be a waqf property; that waqf property, particularly land, has doubled since 2009 and that there is an urgent need to curb the powers of Waqf Boards. The Supreme Court is expected to hear a batch of petitions on October 10 pleading for the curbs.

Knowledgeable sources point out that digitisation of waqf records has led to identification of properties leased to non-Muslims as waqf properties. A large number of shops in Delhi, rented out to non-Muslims by the Delhi Waqf Board, for example, have been found to be paying nominal rent and in many cases, no rent. Due to negligence, complicity or poor supervision, many such properties have also gone into litigation with tenants claiming ownership rights or ‘adverse possession’. Since rent was not collected for a long period, it is argued, the Waqf Boards have lost their right to manage the property.

The website of the Waqf Asset Management System of India (WAMSI) under the ministry of minority affairs informs that 32 Waqf Boards in the country continue to manage 3.54 lakh waqf estates, 8.57 lakh immovable properties (land and real estate) besides 16,628 movable properties, which would include foodgrains, art works and antiques, cash and fixed deposits etc. The website also provides the information that 57,171 waqf properties are illegally occupied. Even more significantly, WAMSI acknowledges that it has no information on 4.35 lakh waqf properties. The ‘waqfnamas’ exist but there is no trace of the properties in the records. A waqfnama is a deed or document through which a person expresses the intention to donate a property/ asset as ‘waqf’.

In response to an RTI query, the Central Waqf Council claimed in July 2020 that 31,594 acres of waqf land were occupied by various government departments and agencies in the country. The RTI reply did not include figures from Gujarat, Telangana and those under the Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board.

The decision to survey/review/inspect waqf properties in revenue records by the UP government last month was welcomed by many. The survey, according to a government notification issued on September 7, is to be completed by October 8. The state’s minority welfare minister Dharampal Singh points out that waqf is not anyone’s personal property and cannot be sold. The order for the review was issued after receiving complaints that a large number of waqf properties and land parcels have been registered in the name of individuals and barren land registered as waqf. He ruled out any political or ulterior motive.

Javed Ahmed, chairman of Waqf Welfare Forum, a private non-profit body formed in 2021, however, voices his reservations. While the survey is welcome, he says, it should not be confined to only land or only revenue records. Only an independent and thorough audit can set the record straight, he insists. Many properties are yet to be recorded as waqf, he says. “If the government means business, it should first freeze the sale of property during the survey. But, is the government really serious about removing illegal occupants?”

Retired Income Tax Commissioner Akramul Jabbar Khan says that the Waqf Act must be followed while conducting any survey. Pointing out that the status of waqf properties cannot be changed by any government, he adds that land or properties belonging to the government or individuals are not identified as ‘waqf’ in records. Only property previously owned by Muslims and given up voluntarily are declared as waqf.

The government appears to be aware of the situation. The Union ministry of minority affairs in a communication to state governments in February this year drew attention to the irregularities, corruption and fraud involving waqf properties across the country. The communication also spoke about the complicity of revenue officials, the land mafia and the mutawallis or caretakers of waqf properties. Many of the waqf properties, it reiterated, had been illegally sold and many mutawallis have grabbed waqf properties.

But the state governments, including UP, seem to have not taken the communication seriously. No concrete action has been initiated to identify the illegal sale of waqf properties, say sources. The objectives of the review-cum-survey of revenue records in Uttar Pradesh are not transparent, they assert. The unspoken fear is that the state governments are out to regularise or legitimise the encroachments and illegal occupation of waqf properties in official records.

Advocate Rauf Rahim had moved the Supreme Court about the rampant irregularities in the management of auqaf; but while the apex court on 20 October 2020 directed all state governments to submit reports on the status of waqf properties within four weeks, not much headway appears to have been made in the case. Earlier, in 2019 a member of the UP legislative assembly, Irfan Solanki, demanded a statewide survey of encroachments on graveyards and waqf land. The demand was brushed aside by the UP government which claimed that in every district task forces headed by the District Magistrates already existed for this purpose.

Salim Mulla, the president of Waqf Liberation and Protection Task Force is upset at BJP’s “doublespeak”. While BJP governments make pious and grand statements about managing waqf, BJP affiliates have been busy spreading disinformation and defame Waqf Boards, which are being accused of illegally taking over land belonging to non-Muslims. Ironically, the Boards have even failed to safeguard the property already under their charge.

In 2017, Devendra Fadnavis as chief minister of Maharashtra had also ordered a survey of waqf properties in Pune and Parvani. But again, nothing substantial has come out of the much-trumpeted survey since then, says Mulla. Nor is anything known about the 2019 decision by the Uttar Pradesh government to hand over the investigation into the affairs of the states’ Shia and Sunni Waqf Boards to the CBI.

Mulla’s allegations about the disinformation campaign about Waqf are lent credence by alarmist blog posts and sundry unverified yet freely aired allegations. Sample this one from a blog post in Times of India written by a chartered accountant named Rajiv Gupta last month: ‘In 2013, the Waqf Act was further amended to give unlimited powers to Waqf Boards to snatch anyone’s property, which could not be challenged in any court of law… the Waqf Board has unlimited powers to claim properties in the name of Muslim charity.’

In the disinformation wars of our times, these false allegations serve a dubious purpose: to defame and discredit Muslims and to polarise voters when elections are round the corner.