Hyderabad, July 09: Muslim clergy in the state through its association of AP Sajjada Nasheens, Mutavallis and Khidmat Gizaran of wakfs on Wednesday told the AP High Court that it wanted a Muslim wakf board and not a Congress or TDP wakf board in the state. It also asked the court to scrap Section 14 of the Wakf Act which empowers the government to fill the board with MPs and MLAs.
Appearing for the petitioner association, senior counsel K Pratap Reddy told the court that since all the activities related to wakf are religious in nature, the government has no power to meddle with the religious independence of the Muslims under the Constitution. It can do so only on grounds of public order and morality. Under the guise of public order, you cannot take over the managements of all the wakfs, he said.
In fact, the counsel said, the Muslim personal law remains secular in matters such as marriage, divorce, succession, etc., and is religious only in matters related to wakf. Rulers had never spread the Islam’s great message of equality and it is only the Mutavallis that spread this and now the Wakf Act is seeking to marginalise them from the wakf board, the counsel lamented.
If the Mutavallis are accused of mismanagement in isolated cases, then the board can act, Pratap Reddy said.
Appearing for the central government, additional solicitor general Mohan Parasaran told the court that all that is done by the wakf board cannot be termed religious. If it runs an educational institute, it is education and not religion, he said. Mutavallis are managers of wakf properties and their functions are not religious ones, he said. Mere possibility of misuse cannot be a ground in itself for quashing the provisions of any law, he said. Moreover, the high courts of Karnataka, Gujarat and Madras have already upheld Section 14 of the Wakf Act, he said.
It can be recalled, the AP state government earlier allotted huge wakf properties in Greater Hyderabad to Lanco and other commercial establishments.The division bench comprising Justice Gulam Mohammad and Justice Vilas V Afzalpurkar which is hearing the case posted the matter to July 13 for further hearing.
—Agencies