Hyderabad: The Supreme Court has held that the offering of prayers by Muslims at a premises in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, which is not included in the official list of auqaf, does not give it the character of a mosque, and ruled that unless a mosque stands on waqf land, a waqf tribunal cannot entertain a suit to declare the place a mosque.
Mosque claim since 2008
The ruling relates to the ground floor of an apartment complex on prime land in Banjara Hills, which has been claimed as a mosque since 2008.
Access to the premises was stopped in 2021 by the owner of the land and the builder of the apartments.
Mohammed Ahmed filed a suit before the waqf tribunal seeking to restrain Habib Alladin and others from causing hindrance to those visiting the Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Centre functioning from the premises.
According to a report by the TOI, the owner of the plot moved the Telangana High Court, stating that the sanctioned building plan made no mention of the disputed area as a mosque and that the tribunal could not have entertained the suit.
The High Court rejected the plea.
SC raises the necessity of the ‘auqaf’ list
After analysing judgments on the issue, a bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran observed that a reading of Sections 6 and 7 of the Waqf Act, 1995, makes it clear that the jurisdiction to determine whether a property is a waqf property vests in the tribunal only if the property is specified as waqf property in the ‘list of auqaf’.
The bench said that a bare reading of the plaint showed that the property was neither specified in the ‘list of auqaf’ published under Chapter II nor registered under Chapter V of the Act, and therefore the decision on whether the property was a waqf property could not be taken by the tribunal, as inclusion in the list of auqaf is a mandatory requirement to approach it.
The Supreme Court said it would not consider the issue of whether the property could be deemed to be a “waqf by user”, stating that the question remains open.
It set aside the tribunal order assuming jurisdiction and the High Court order affirming it.
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