The Delhi High Court has held that the statutory scheme of the Muslim Wakfs Act, 1954, provided a specific and time-bound remedy, and Section 6(1) of the 1954 Act allowed any interested person to dispute the inclusion of a property in the wakf list by instituting a suit in a competent Civil Court. However, the proviso to Section 6(1) explicitly barred the institution of such a suit after the expiry of one year from the date of publication of the list.
The Court reasoned that if the ordinary civil remedy was barred by a specific statutory limitation of one year, entertaining a writ petition challenging the same notification after a lapse of 46 years would be legally impermissible.
The Court also termed the petition as an abuse of the judicial process under the guise of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL). Based on the petitioner’s history of filing numerous petitions, the inordinate and unexplained delay, the lack of evidence to substantiate the claims, and the failure to demonstrate a genuine public interest, the Court concluded that the petition was not bonafide. The Court applied the established legal principles that PIL is a weapon to be used with care and that petitions filed by “busybodies for extraneous and ulterior motives” must be discouraged and dismissed.
The Division Bench comprising the Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia observed that the petitioner was unnecessarily attempting to rake up the past and that the motive behind filing the petition did not appear to be bonafide. It noted that challenging a notification after 46 years on flimsy grounds was impermissible. The Bench found a complete lack of evidence or proof to establish that the land acquired under Award was the same land on which the subject wakf properties exist.
The Bench took serious note of the petitioner’s litigation history, observing that it appeared to be habitual of filing the petitions describing them as public interest litigation petitions and listed 37 PILs and several other cases filed by the petitioner. The Bench also noted the petitioner’s statement about being falsely implicated in police cases without providing any details.
The Bench emphasized that a PIL petitioner must approach the court not only with clean hands but also with a clean heart, clean mind and clean objective. It warned against the abuse of PIL for personal gain, private profit, political motives, or other oblique considerations, stating that such petitions should be rejected at the threshold.
Briefly, the petitioner, a registered trust, had filed a PIL challenging a notification dated March 24, 1980, which was published in the Delhi official Gazette on April 10, 1980, which was issued by the Delhi Wakf Board under Section 5(2) of the Muslim Wakfs Act, 1954, publishing a list of wakf properties in Delhi. The petitioner specifically challenged the inclusion of three Sunni wakf properties: Mosque locally known as Jama Masjid, Jahangir Puri; Mosque, Jahangir Puri, locally known as Moti Masjid; and Masjid Jahangir Puri, Delhi.
The petitioner’s primary contention was that the land on which these properties are situated was acquired by the Delhi Government on March 26, 1977 under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, for the planned development of Delhi. It was argued that compensation was paid to the landowners and the land was subsequently handed over to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). Therefore, the petitioner claimed that these properties could not be declared as wakf properties and that their existence constituted illegal encroachment on public land.
The respondents, particularly the Wakf Board, contested the petition’s maintainability on the grounds of an inordinate delay of 46 years. They argued that the notification was issued after following the due process prescribed under Sections 4 and 5 of the 1954 Act. Further, they pointed out that Section 6 of the Act provided a specific remedy for any person interested in the property to challenge its inclusion in the wakf list by filing a suit in a Civil Court within one year of the notification’s publication, a remedy which was now time-barred.
Appearances:
Advocates Umesh Chandra Sharma, Vikas Sharma, Yogesh Aggarwal, Neeraj Chauhan, Mohit Kumar, Khushbu Khatri, Lalit Goyal, Preeti Singh and Subhash Pal, for the Petitioner
Senior Advocate Sanjoy Ghose, along with Advocates Manu Chaturvedi, Ahmed Jamal Siddiqui, K. K. Rai, Madhav Tripathi, Sayed Abdul Haseeb, Varun Pratap Singh, Shobhana Takiar, Kuljeet Singh, Farahat Jahan Rehmani, Firoz I. Khan, I. Ahmed, R. Mandal, M. Ali, and Nazma, for the Respondent
