Waqf law 2025: SC puts on hold collector's powers, 5-year Muslim clause, waqf-by-user

The Supreme Court on Monday put on hold a few key provisions of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, including a clause that only those practising Islam for the last five years could create Waqf, but refused to stay the entire law outlining the presumption of constitutionality in its favour.

- MPOST BUREAU

“Presumption is always in favour of constitutionality of a statute and intervention (can be done) only in the rarest of rare cases,” a bench of Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih said in its 128-page interim order on the contentious issue.

The bench said: “We do not find that any case is made to stay the provisions of the entire statute. The prayer for stay of the impugned Act is, therefore, rejected.”

However, in order to “protect the interest of parties” and “balancing the equities”, the order stayed some provisions including the powers accorded to a collector to adjudicate the status of waqf properties and ruled on the issue of non-Muslim participation in Waqf Boards.

The bench, therefore, directed the Central Waqf Council not to have more than four non-Muslim members in the total composition of 20 besides asking state waqf boards to have not more than three such members in the total of 11.

The interim stay is on three provisions - one must be a ‘practicing Muslim’ for five years to create a waqf, the powers of a District Collector to rule on disputed properties, and ‘waqf by user’.

The court held that the provision of ‘practicing Muslim’ for five years ion does not seem to be arbitrary, but stayed its execution till the centre and state governments can introduce a mechanism to establish if a person has, in fact, been practicing Islam for five years.