HC slams Munambam waqf claim as land grabbing tactic

The bench observed that the move has ‘affected the bread and butter, livelihood of hundreds of families and bonafide occupants who had purchased tranches of land decades prior to the notification of the waqf property’

- PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

The Kerala High Court Friday said that notifying the Munambam land as waqf was a “land grabbing tactic of the Kerala Waqf Board” and upheld the government order appointing a inquiry commission to ascertain ownership of the disputed area.

A bench of justices Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Syam Kumar VM also said that the subject property could never have been classified as a waqf property for want of compliance with mandatory procedure and provisions of the Waqf Act of 1954 and 1955.

It said that the notifying of the land in dispute as waqf was ultra vires the provisions of the Waqf Act of 1954 and 1995 and “nothing less than a land grabbing tactics of the Kerala Waqf Board (KWB)”.

The bench observed that the move has ‘affected the bread and butter, livelihood of hundreds of families and bonafide occupants who had purchased tranches of land decades prior to the notification of the waqf property’.