The Supreme Court has held that the jurisdiction of the Wakf Tribunal and the corresponding ouster of the Civil Court’s jurisdiction under Section 85 of the Wakf Act, 1995, is not absolute. The jurisdiction is limited only to those disputes, questions, or matters that are specifically required “by or under this Act to be determined by a Tribunal”.
The Court clarified that Section 83 of the 1995 Act is a provision that enables the government to constitute Tribunals; it does not, by itself, confer any omnibus or independent jurisdiction. The power of the Tribunal to determine whether a property is a waqf property under Sections 6 and 7 of the 1995 Act is strictly confined to properties that are already specified in the “list of Auqaf”, which includes the list published under Section 5(2) and the register maintained under Section 37 of the 1955 Act.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court set aside the orders of the High Court and the Wakf Tribunal, and held that the suit for a simple injunction was not maintainable before the Tribunal because the subject property was not specified in any ‘list of auqaf’ as required by Sections 6(1) and 7(1) of the Wakf Act, 1995. Consequently, the Tribunal lacked the jurisdiction to determine whether the property was a waqf.
The Court also allowed the appellants’ application under Order VII, Rule 11 of the CPC and ordered the rejection of the plaint filed before the Tribunal. However, it left the substantive question of whether the property is a waqf or not open to be agitated in the appropriate legal forum.
A Two-Judge Bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice K. Vinod Chandran observed that the expansive interpretation in W.B. Wakf Board v. Anis Fatma Begum [(2010) 14 SCC 588] and Rashid Wali Beg v. Farid Pindari [(2022) 4 SCC 414] often overlooked the qualifying words “under this Act” in Section 83(1), which are crucial for limiting the Wakf Tribunal’s jurisdiction to only those matters for which power is specifically granted in the statute.
The Bench further observed that the 2013 amendment to the Act, which gave the Tribunal powers to evict encroachers, only removed the sub-stratum of the decision in the case of Ramesh Gobindram v. Sugra Humayun Mirza Wakf [(2010) 8 SCC 726] on that specific issue but did not otherwise disturb the core principle that the Tribunal’s jurisdiction is not absolute and is confined to the specific powers conferred by the 1995 Act.
Briefly, the respondent-plaintiff filed a suit before the Wakf Tribunal seeking a perpetual injunction to restrain the appellants-defendants from obstructing him and other Musallies from offering prayers in a space on the ground floor of a residential apartment complex. The plaintiff claimed this space was established as a Mosque in 2008 with the owner’s participation.
Opposing the same, the appellants, including the owner, filed an application under Order VII, Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, for rejection of the plaint, contending that no Mosque was ever established, the property was not a waqf under the Wakf Act, 1995, and it was not included in the notified ‘list of Auqaf’. The Tribunal rejected this application, and the High Court upheld the rejection.
Appearances:
AOR Pranab Kumar Mullick, along with Advocates Soma Mullick, Hemant Kumar, and Abhishek Gupta, for the Appellant
AOR Vipul Kumar, for the Respondent
