Top court fumes over absence of Wakf panel

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday took serious exception to non-constitution of a three member Tribunal by various states, including Maharashtra, to deal with matters related to Wakf and directed them to immediately take steps in this regard.

A bench of Justices M.Y. Eqbal and C. Nagappan said that constitution of a three-member Tribunal as mandated under Wakf Act and notification in this regard must be issued within four months from today.

“Before parting with the order, we record our serious exception to the conduct of the states who have not till date issued fresh notification constituting three-member Tribunal as mandated by Section 83(4) of the Act,” the Bench said.

“We, therefore, direct the states to immediately take steps for constituting a three-member Tribunal and notification to that effect must be issued within four months from today. Let copy of this judgment be sent to the Chief Secretaries of all the states for compliance,” it said.

The direction came while disposing of a bunch of petitions challenging the Bombay High Court's order which had held that suit before the one-member Tribunal was not maintainable and till a fresh notification is issued by state government constituting a three-member tribunal, the civil court has the jurisdiction to entertain the suits on Wakf properties.

One of the petitioners before the apex court had assailed the part of the High Court's order in which it had refused to interfere with the interim order passed by the Tribunal and had directed that the interim order shall continue till the plaint of the suit was presented to a civil court.