Delhi HC seeks Centre's response on Waqf Board's plea for reinstating properties

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday declined to pass an interim order in a case related to the transfer of properties belonged to the Delhi Waqf Board. The Court also sought the Centre's response on the issue.

About 123 properties, mainly mosques and Muslims graveyards, located at Mathura road to India Tibetan Border Police, were denotified from land acquisition process in 2014 and were to be reverted to the Waqf Board.

Declining to pass an order in favour of the Waqf Board's, the court said that the court would like to hear the Centre's response over the matter and a decision favouring the Board was made, there would be no issue in commanding to reinstate the properties with the Board.

Now the case is that while a decision on the properties is still under the process of by a committee constituted by the Centre, the Centre is alleged to have transfer the properties to other agencies like ITBP.

The government in 2016 had constituted a one-member committee for the purpose, which submitted its report in 2017. In August 2018, the government appointed a two-member Committee for the same purpose and in November 2021.

But the Centre told the court that it had rejected the one-member committee report as the report has been found to be inconclusive due to it had also opposed sharing the report with Waqf Board.

The Waqf Board argued that the report was rejected even before making it public, and there is no provision for recalling the order of withdrawal from the acquisition.