The Hindu : National : Wakf Act needs more teeth: MP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 06, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

Wakf Act needs more teeth: MP

Special Correspondent

Urges government to take steps to retrieve Wakf land held by encroachers

— Photo: H. Vibhu

FOR A CAUSE: Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman K. Rahman Khan, who heads the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Wakf (with microphone), and his team at a news conference in Kochi on Sunday.

KOCHI: About three-fourths of the Wakf properties across the country have been encroached upon and the government needs to take serious steps to retrieve them, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman K. Rahman Khan, who heads the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on Wakf, has said.

“Roughly 65 to 75 per cent of the Wakf properties in the country are being enjoyed by encroachers,” Mr. Khan said at a news conference attended by a few members of the JPC here on Sunday. “A section of the Wakf property is also with various State governments.” Though the Wakf Act of 1995 empowers the chief executive officers of the State Wakf Boards to order retrieval of the encroached properties, because of the bureaucratic apathy, this was hardly implemented, he said.

(According to the Wakf Act 1995, “Wakf means permanent dedication by a person professing Islam of any movable or immovable property for any purpose recognised by the Muslim law as pious, religious and charitable.” A Wakf board is a quasi-judicial body administering the Wakf properties and is empowered to rule over Wakf-related disputes.)

Mr. Khan said the largest number of encroachments on Wakf properties had taken place in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh. Highlighting the enormity of the encroachments, Mr. Khan said that of the 1.65 lakh Wakf properties in Andhra Pradesh, 83,000 have been encroached upon by land sharks.

These included properties with an area of a few cents to hundreds of acres. The government too had taken over Wakf properties for various purposes.

He noted that if the encroached lands, when recovered, developed well and put to economic use, could foot the bill for the educational needs of a section of the educationally-backward Muslim community in the country.

He said that in order to check the encroachment and to retrieve the lost ones, the Wakf Act needed to be rearmed and that one of the main objectives of the JPC was to recommend amendment to the Act.

The JPC, set up in January 2006, was also examining the functioning of the Central Wakf Council and State boards, apart from ascertaining the implementation of the Act by the States.

Mr. Khan said the JPC was in the last phase of its work and that its report would be presented to the next session of Parliament. Recommending amendments to equip the Act to deal with encroachments would be the main task of the report.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National