NEW DELHI: As Supreme Court readies to hear on Wednesday a bunch of petitions challenging Waqf Amendment Act, a petition by advocate Hari Shankar Jain sought scrapping of several provisions of waqf Act, 1995 and recent amendments alleging their use as tools by waqfs to illegally amass immoveable properties across India, reports Dhananjay Mahapatra.
In his petition, Jain, who is in the forefront of litigation for restoration of Gyanvapi mosque at Varanasi and Idgah at Mathura to Kashi Vishwanath temple and Krishna Janmasthan temple, challenged as many as six section of the waqf Act alleging that because of these provisions “Muslims have been able to illegally capture the properties belonging to public utilities, govt, gram samajs and Hindu temples.”
For the petitioner, advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain repeatedly pleaded before a bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar for hearing the petition along with those filed by AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi, AAP functionary Amanatullah Khan, NGO ‘Association for the Protection of Civil Rights’, Darul Uloom principal Arshad Madani, Islamic religious body ‘Samastha Kerala Jamiathul Ulema’, Anjum Kadari, advocate Taiyyab Khan Salmani, SDPI’s Mohd Shafi, All India Muslim Personal Law Board general secretary Mohd Fazlurrahim and RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha.
Petitions were also filed by DMK MP A Raja, who was part of the joint parliamentary committee on waqf bill, and CPI, but these were not listed along with the other bunch of petitions. TVK president Vijay, Congress MP Mohammed Jawed and Jamaat-e-Islami too have moved SC against the Act.
A key objection to the changes carried out by Parliament to waqf Act was that these discriminated against Muslims purely on religious grounds and attempts to oust them from meaningfully administering waqf properties, which is a creation of their faith.