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Rashid Wali Beg v. Farid Pindari & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 685Decided 28 Oct 2021
Civil Appeal No. 6336 of 2021
Justice Hemant Gupta · Justice V. Ramasubramanian

Background

The plaintiff claimed to manage a Waqf property in Lucknow on his grandmother's authorisation and sued in a civil court for a mandatory and permanent injunction against alleged encroachers, who included a person admitting in his written statement that the land was indeed Waqf property. The defendant sought dismissal on the ground that only the Waqf Tribunal, not a civil court, had jurisdiction over disputes concerning Waqf property. The trial court and first appellate court agreed with the defendant, but the High Court held the civil court had jurisdiction because the dispute was only about an injunction, not about the property's Waqf status.

Decision Breakdown

After extensively reviewing conflicting precedents on the scope of the civil-court bar under Section 85 of the Waqf Act, 1995, the Supreme Court held that where a property is admitted to be Waqf property, any dispute "relating to" that property, including a suit for injunction, falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Waqf Tribunal, not the civil court. Since the defendant here had himself admitted the property was Waqf land, and a question had also arisen as to whether the plaintiff was truly a beneficiary of the Waqf, the matter had to go to the Tribunal. The Court set aside the High Court's judgment and directed the trial court to return the plaint so it could be re-filed before the jurisdictional Waqf Tribunal, to be decided within six months.

Lesson Learnt

Once land is accepted by all sides to be Waqf property, any legal dispute over it, even a simple injunction suit, generally must go to the specialised Waqf Tribunal rather than an ordinary civil court.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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