Wakf board irregularities: Minorities Commission drags TS, AP to court

State Minorities Commission director Abid Rasool Khan has dragged Telangana and AP, among others, to the high court for allegedly not finding a way to start a CBI investiogation into the irregularities in wakf foundations as prescribed by it.

Khan said that the commission had received a few complaints about the irregularities of wakf properties in both the states. He claimed that the AP State Minorities Commission Act permitted the body entertain such protests.

In the appeal, the commission refered to the illustration of Maulvi Nabi Khana close Madina working in the Old City and claimed that while rents for properties of the organization could have been altered at Rs 50,000, the wakf board has been gathering a rent of Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000.

“The parliamentary panel in its observations and recommendations to the Center and states communicated displeasure over wild infringement of wakf properties in the course of the most recent 40 years in Andhra Pradesh, which was one the states having biggest wakf properties,” an excerpt from the petition reads.

According to TOI reports, apart from a full-fledged inquiry into wakf affairs in both states, spanning a period of 30 years, the commission is seeking interim orders from the HC directing both the state governments and the Centre to consider initiating a CBI probe into alienation of wakf land.

Further, it is also seeking an interim order to direct the state governments and the wakf authorities not to lease wakf properties, not to change managing committees and not to issue ‘No objection certificates’. It has also sought interim orders directing the CBI to proceed with a preliminary inquiry.