The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the Kerala High Court’s observations that had described the notification of land at Munambam in Ernakulam district as waqf as a “land-grabbing tactic of the Kerala Waqf Board”, and ordered maintenance of status quo over the disputed property.
A Bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Ujjal Bhuyan, however, clarified that it has not stayed the High Court’s direction upholding the Kerala government’s decision to appoint an inquiry commission to ascertain the ownership of the land.
The dispute relates to around 404 acres of land in the villages of Cherai and Munambam, where local residents have alleged that the Waqf Board unlawfully claimed their land as waqf despite them holding registered title deeds and land tax payment receipts. The properties were notified as waqf in 2019.
The top court issued notice to the Kerala government on a plea filed by the Kerala Waqf Samrakshana Vedi challenging the October 10 judgment of the High Court, and sought its response. The matter has been listed for further hearing in the week commencing January 27.
Senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi, appearing for the petitioner, argued that the High Court exceeded its jurisdiction by making observations on the validity of the waqf deed and the character of the land. He submitted that these issues fall exclusively within the domain of the Waqf Tribunal and were not the subject matter of the writ proceedings before the High Court.
Ahmadi contended that the writ petition before the High Court only challenged the state government’s decision to constitute an inquiry commission, and that the High Court erred in rendering findings on issues pending before the tribunal. He also pointed out that the muttawalli of the concerned waqf had sided with the opposing parties.
Senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, appearing for the Kerala government, opposed the plea and argued that the muttawalli had not challenged the constitution of the inquiry commission. He further submitted that the petitioner was a stranger to the proceedings and that the inquiry commission had already submitted its report to the state government.
Counsel appearing for the local residents submitted that many of them are poor fishermen who were never heard before their properties were notified as waqf. It was argued that the challenge to the inquiry commission had become infructuous since the commission’s report had already been submitted.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, also representing local residents, pointed out that there was already a civil court decree holding that the land in question was not waqf property.
Observing that the High Court may not have been the appropriate forum to decide the nature of the land, Justice Manoj Misra remarked, “It appears that the High Court has gone far beyond its remit. You are left worse off than you were before filing the writ petition. If the court came to the conclusion that the writ petition was not maintainable, it could have stopped there.”
Justice Ujjal Bhuyan questioned whether the High Court could have gone into such issues at all, noting that the matter was already pending before the Waqf Tribunal. The Bench observed that the High Court could have confined itself to setting aside the single-judge order instead of making sweeping declarations.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court ordered that the declaration in the impugned judgment stating that the property is not waqf land shall remain stayed, and directed maintenance of status quo over the disputed property.
On October 10, the Kerala High Court had held that notifying the Munambam land as waqf was ultra vires the Waqf Acts of 1954 and 1995 and amounted to a “land-grabbing tactic” by the Waqf Board. It had also upheld the state government’s decision to appoint an inquiry commission, observing that the notification had adversely affected the livelihood of hundreds of families who had purchased the land decades earlier.
The state government had appointed a commission headed by former Acting Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court, Justice C.N. Ramachandran Nair, in November last year to ascertain ownership of the disputed land.
