The Delhi High Court on May 12 sought the stand of the central government and the Central Waqf Council on a PIL, which sought to declare that the Waqf Act is violative of the Constitution and that private property of citizens can be governed by only one person. uniform civil code,
A bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla issued notice on Devendra Nath Tripathi’s plea and gave time to the respondents to file their replies.
The petitioner claimed in the petition that the Union of India does not have the legislative capacity to make laws relating to ‘Waqf’ and religious properties except for non-Muslim citizens of the country and that a welfare state is bound to provide equal social security. Every citizen of India has no place for economic, political and religious freedom and opportunities and laws like Waqf Act.
“The Waqf Act, 1995 is arbitrary as the legislature does not have the necessary capacity to make such laws under entry 10 or 28 of the Concurrent List of the 7th Schedule and hence it should be struck down by this Hon’ble Court. … of religious Waqf properties. Managing a welfare state is a direct violation of the scheme of the Constitution and in particular Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution, apart from the violation of the Preamble,” the petition said.
It further said that the management of waqf properties is essentially done on religious lines and the state is not allowed to regulate it for one religion except others.
“The petitioner is inter alia challenging the validity of sections 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14 and 16 (a) of the Waqf Act, 1995, as these provisions provide equal status to other non-Muslims. granting special status to the deprived Waqf properties and therefore conferring unbridled powers to the Waqf Boards through tribunals constituted under the Act,” the petition said.
“Otherwise the Waqf Act is not able to ameliorate the socio-economic conditions of the overwhelming majority of Muslims in our country, who are anyway deeply engrossed in poverty. They are labourers, agricultural laborers and farmers who live in extreme poverty, and hence a UCC can be only one answer,” it added.
The petition also argued that the creation of a Waqf Tribunal for the religious properties of Muslims is arbitrary and that Parliament has no power to make a tribunal beyond the scope of its legislative powers.
The next hearing of the case will be on July 28.