New Delhi: The Kerala Waqf Samrakshana Vedhi has approached the Supreme Court with a Special Leave Petition (SLP) challenging the Kerala High Court’s conclusion that the 404.76-acre Munambam property is not Waqf land, Maktoobmedia reported.
The petition contests the High Court’s 10 October judgment, delivered by a division bench, which upheld the State Government’s decision to appoint a one-member Commission of Inquiry into the status and extent of the property. According to the petitioner, the court went far beyond the legal question before it, making factual determinations about the intention of the waqif, the interpretation of the 1950 endowment deed, and whether the land constitutes a waqf or a simple gift. These issues, they argue, require trial, evidence and statutory adjudication, which fall exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Waqf Tribunal.
The Munambam land dispute has remained fraught for years, with residents arguing that the application of waqf law puts their property rights at risk. The land was gifted in 1950 by Siddhique Sait to Farook College, an institution managed by a Muslim trust, and was subsequently sold in the 1960s. Present-day residents say their predecessors bought the land from the college.
In 2019, however, the Waqf Board declared the area to be Waqf property, leading to the suspension of land tax payments and sparking fears of eviction. The declaration triggered widespread protests, which gained statewide attention, particularly during the national debate surrounding the Waqf Amendment Act of 2025.
Amid growing public pressure, the State Government appointed a judicial commission led by former High Court judge Justice C. N. Ramachandran Nair to examine the dispute. A single judge of the High Court later struck down the commission, holding that the issue fell exclusively within the Waqf Tribunal’s jurisdiction. The State appealed, and a division bench overturned that decision. In restoring the commission, the bench also noted that the Munambam property was not waqf land and that the Waqf Board’s 2019 move to register it as such was beyond the scope of the Waqf Act, 1995.
The Waqf Samrakshana Vedhi maintains that the validity of the 2019 registration was never an issue raised before the High Court in the writ appeals, nor had the State sought any such declaration. They argue that the sole question before the court was whether the State could appoint a Commission of Inquiry into a matter already being adjudicated by the Waqf Tribunal. Despite this, the High Court went on to make factual observations about the nature of the 1950 endowment deed, which the petitioner says undermines the proceedings currently before the Tribunal in Kozhikode. Those proceedings challenge the Waqf Board’s 2019 order registering the land as the “Mohammed Sidhique Sait Waqf.”
The petitioner also notes that the character of the property was settled in O.S. No. 53 of 1967, in which the Sub Court, Paravur, ruled that the 1950 deed executed in favour of Farook College was a waqf deed. The Kerala High Court upheld this finding in 1973, and Farook College never contested it. The petitioner argues that this earlier judicial determination is binding and cannot be revisited through an executive inquiry conducted by a commission.
The SLP further contends that the High Court erred in allowing the Commission of Inquiry to continue, arguing that this effectively creates a parallel forum alongside the Waqf Tribunal, which the Waqf Act designates as the sole authority for such disputes. It maintains that the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952 does not empower the government to set up a commission to examine issues already before a judicial body, and that the High Court’s direction permitting the commission to “identify the nature and extent of the property” runs counter to the statutory scheme under Sections 83 and 85 of the Waqf Act, which bar any other authority or court from intervening in matters reserved exclusively for the Tribunal.
Meanwhile, protests in Munambam have now stretched beyond 400 days. Marking the milestone, frustrated residents burned copies of their property documents and held a march, voicing their anger over the prolonged uncertainty surrounding their land rights.