Supreme Court Gives Centre a Week to Respond on Waqf Act Validity, Halts Changes to ‘Waqf by User’

Supreme Court: Observing the Centre's assurance until the next date of hearing, wakf, including 'waqf by user', which is declared by notification or registered, will not face denotification or character change.

The Centre further stated that no appointments will be made to the Waqf Council or Waqf boards.

The hearing of the case resumed at 2 pm on Thursday before a three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Justices PV Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan.

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The next date for hearing was fixed for the week beginning May 5, by which time responses from the Centre, states, and petitioners opposing the Act would have been filed. The court directed the selection of five petitions to be lead petitions that will be decided by the petitioners.

The Supreme Court, while separating cases filed by Hindu parties questioning the previous Waqf laws of 1995 and 2013, ordered that all the five petitions challenging the 2025 Act be listed under a common title "In Re: Waqf Amendment Act 2025."

The apex court bench had expressed its concerns about the law on Wednesday. It had raised three issues regarding the law- status of the properties of Waqf by user declared as such under earlier court orders, majority presence of non-Muslim members in Waqf Councils and Waqf Boards and that a property could not be treated a waqf property if disputed as a government plot.

It said that the apex court was inclined to pass an interim order to stay the operation of the law on these scores but considered giving an opportunity to the Centre and states when the matter is next heard, which would be on Thursday.

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What Supreme Court said on Waqf Act on April 16

The bench said,"We will say that whichever properties have been declared by the court to be Waqf or held to be Waqf will not be de-notified as Waqfs or be treated as non-Waqf properties, whether they are by Waqf-by-user or waqf-by-declaration or otherwise... declared by courts or otherwise also."

Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna said, "Government cannot rewrite history" on the changes introduced by amendments to the Waqf law, referring to the provisions in the new Act permitting de-notifying properties declared as Waqf long back.

Who have filed the petitions?

The Supreme Court is hearing a batch of petitions against the constitutional validity of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 recently cleared by Parliament. One of the petitions is filed by AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi.

Apart from Owaisi's petition, the top court will hear petitions filed by Aam Aadmi Party leader Amanatullah Khan, Association for the Protection of Civil Rights, Arshad Madani, Samastha Kerala Jamiathul Ulema, Anjum Kadari, Taiyyab Khan Salmani, Mohammad Shafi, Mohammed Fazlurrahim, and RJD leader Manoj Kumar Jha.

The YSRCP led by former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, Communists, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam chief-actor Vijay, are also in this petition.

A few other very significant petitioners are All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Congress MP's Imran Pratapgarhi and Mohammad Jawed.

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