Govt notifies rules to implement Waqf Act

The Union government on Friday notified the rules that will operationalise the contentious Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, focussing largely on the functioning of the central portal where Islamic charitable endowments will be registered and leaving some finer details to the states.

- Vrinda Tulsian

The 32-page document issued by the Union ministry of minority affairs is now set to be laid before Parliament during the upcoming monsoon session commencing July 21. HT first reported on June 20 that the rules would be published within 15 days. If Parliament makes any changes, the rules will be published in the gazette again, said a senior ministry official.

"The act in itself was quite elaborate so the rules have been kept short and to the point, mostly centering around the portal itself. Now the ministry's work is done and the rules will be laid in the upcoming Parliament session. The states have the biggest task now which is to make their own rules under the act," said a senior ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The rules were framed under Section 108B, which was inserted into the 1995 Waqf Act by the amendments passed earlier this year and which allowed the Centre to make rules for waqf asset management system, registration, accounts, audit and other details of waqf, and the manner of payments for maintenance of widow, divorced woman and orphans.

The Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development (UMEED) Rules, 2025 primarily operationalised the national UMEED portal launched last month, establishing a centralised digital database for Waqf properties supervised by the joint secretary of the ministry's waqf division.

Key portal functions included filing detailed Waqf records, registering new Waqfs, maintaining electronic registers, submitting annual accounts, and auto-generating unique IDs for each Waqf and property.

The rules establish a sixmonth deadline for uploading all existing Waqf properties onto the portal. State governments must publish surveyed lists of auqaf (plural of waqf) and upload them within 90 days of the rules' gazette publication, with possible 90-day extensions requiring stated reasons.