"State Government Should've Challenged This Order": Supreme Court Stays Kerala High Court's Finding That Munambam Land Isn't Waqf

The Supreme Court, today, stayed the Kerala High Court's declaration that the Munambam property is not Waqf land, simultaneously ordering the maintenance of the status quo regarding the property.

The Court issued notice in a Special Leave Petition filed by the Kerala Waqf Samrakshana Vedi challenging the High Court's verdict, which held that Munambam land is not a Waqf property under the Waqf Act, 1995.

The bench of Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan ordered, "...The present matter requires consideration...Issue notice returnable in the week commencing 27 January. In the meantime, the declaration in the impugned judgment that the property in question is not the subject matter of 'Waqf' shall remain stayed. The status quo regarding the same shall be maintained."

Senior Advocate Huzefa Ahmadi appeared for the Petitioner, Senior Advocate Jaideep Gupta appeared for the State of Kerala, Senior Advocate V Chitambaresh, and Senior Advocate Maninder Singh appeared for the residents of the land.

Ahmadi submitted, "I went to the writ Court challenging this inquiry by the Commissioner of Inquiry to say that by virtue of the Bar enacted under Sections 85, 83 read with 7, it is only the Waqf Tribunal that has the jurisdiction to determine...The jurisdiction part is still with the Tribunal...Now, what the division bench does, it goes into my waqf deed, declares once in for all that it is not a waqf but a gift..."

Justice Misra remarked, "So you have been placed in a situation worse than before..."

Senior Advocate Gupta submitted, "What my learned friend hasn't pointed out is that it is a PIL. It is not the muttawalli who has come forward and said that it is a waqf property, etc., etc. He claims to be a person aggrieved, but he is a person aggrieved as a public."

Ahmadi clarified, "I don't claim to be the PIL Petitioner...I was the writ petitioner before the Learned Single Judge, and it has categorically said that I have locus, because, if it is a Waqf Property...there is a representative interest."

Justice Bhuyan remarked, "Can the writ Court go into all this?...what happens to the inquiry commission report?...He could have set aside the order of the single judge instead of going into all this. Nobody has asked for this..."

Senior Advocate Chitambaresh, for the current residents of the land, submitted, "We are all bona fide purchasers of the parcels of the land...mostly fishermen, hundreds of them have erected homes...the original deed was of 1950. 69 years later they have registered the Waqf, the way the property has been assigned...."

Justice Bhuyan said, "What was the need of going into that? (regarding the impugned order)...He has gone much beyond...State Government should have challenged this order...this order has made your...(referring to the petition) redundant."

Ahmadi argued that the writ petition only challenged the State's constitution of the inquiry commission. As issues regarding the validity of the Waqf deed and the nature of the land fall exclusively within the Waqf Tribunal's domain—where pending proceedings already challenge the land's Waqf notification—the High Court erred in adjudicating those questions.

Background

A batch of Writ Appeals was filed by the State before the Kerala High Court challenging the Judgment of the Single Bench by which a notification issued under the provisions of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952 (COI Act) was quashed.

The high court had remarked that if judicial seal of approval is placed on such an arbitrary declaration of Waqf, tomorrow any random building or structure, including Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Niyama Sabha Mandiram (State Legislature Complex), or even this Court’s building would be vulnerable of being painted with the brush of a waqf property by the Waqf Board on the basis of any random document at any point of time. 

Vide the impugned Judgment, the Single Bench quashed the 2024 notification under the COI Act, constituting an Inquiry Commission headed by a former Judge of the High Court to inquire into certain issues mentioned thereunder relating to property situated in Vadakkekara village, Kozhikode District. The Bench had held that since the subject property has been declared as a Waqf property by the Kerala Waqf Board (KWB), the Inquiry Commission could not have been constituted at the threshold for carrying out any inquiry touching the nature of the said Waqf property.

The said property was gifted to Farooq College Management Committee, and the Single Bench had held that the State Government acted ultra vires its powers available in the province of the COI Act and acted contrary to the provisions of the Waqf Act. In 2019, the KWB had declared the property as Waqf, which led to legal disputes and large-scale protests by local inhabitants who had settled there for almost two to three decades by then.

Accordingly, the matter is now listed for a further date.

Cause Title: Kerala Waqf Samrakshana Vedhi(Regd.) vs. State of Kerala [Diary No. 66064 / 2025]