Delhi HC rejects PIL against 1980 Waqf notification on properties in Jahangirpuri

The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a public interest litigation PIL, which challenged a 1980 Waqf notification and alleged that three mosques in Jahangirpuri area were illegal encroachment on public land.

The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL), which challenged a 1980 Waqf notification and alleged that three mosques in Jahangirpuri area were illegal encroachment on public land. A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia observed that the PIL by the NGO Save India Foundation was not filed with ''bonafide motive or in public interest''. ''We are not inclined to entertain the instant petition, which is hereby dismissed along with pending applications,'' the court ordered. The petitioner assailed the notification, dated March 24, 1980, issued by the Delhi Waqf Board to publish certain properties as Sunni Waqf properties, specifically Moti Masjid and Jama Masjid in Jahangirpuri as well as another local mosque in the area. The petitioner alleged that the land on which the three properties exist was duly acquired by the Delhi government in 1977 after paying compensation to its owners, and therefore any construction on that land parcel was nothing but illegal encroachment on public land and they could not have been enlisted as Waqf properties. The plea claimed that the acquisition was made for planned development of Delhi and the land was handed over to the Delhi Development Authority, which integrated these parcels of land into a formal layout plan for a planned colony which was named as Jahangirpuri. The court, in its judgment, observed that the petitioner, who was ''habitual'' of filing the petitions and describing them as public interest litigation, has ''unnecessarily attempted to rake up the past'' and any notification issued 46 years ago could not be permitted to be challenged on ''flimsy grounds''. It emphasised that the ''purity of the stream'' of PIL should not be permitted to be undermined by any litigant at any cost, and even as per the Supreme Court, it was the duty of the courts to ensure that frivolous petitions or petitions not filed with bonafide intentions are ''nipped in bud''. The court noted that as per the petition, the trustee of the petitioner Trust, Preet Singh, was said to have been falsely implicated by the police in fake cases due to political considerations but it did not disclose the details of the criminal cases. It said that the notification was issued after an inquiry conducted by the 'Commissioner of Waqfs' as per the law and the list of Waqf properties was published only on examination of the report received from the state government, which was based on the inquiry conducted by the commissioner. It further observed that when an ordinary civil remedy with respect to any listed Waqf property was barred after a stipulated time, entertaining a writ petition, that too after 46 years, would legally be impermissible. The counsel for the Delhi Waqf Board opposed the maintainability of the petition and argued that challenging the notification after a lapse of about 46 years would not be permissible. He further said that the list of the Waqf properties was published strictly in accordance with the provisions of the law.

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