Karnataka Waqf Board has illegally converted 29,000 acres of land for commercial purposes, states the 2012 report by the Karnataka State Minorities Commission on Waqf land encroachments, said Union Minority Affairs minister Kiren Rijiju in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, while introducing the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024.
Rijiju, who later proposed to send the bill to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) following objections from the opposition parties, was elaborating on the gross misuse of Waqf lands in the country and the need to amend the Waqf Act.
The minister was referring to a report submitted by the Anwar Manippady committee report, which stated that 54,000 acres of land is registered in the Waqf Board, while 27,000 acres was unregistered. However, what was alarming was that 29,000 acres of the registered land had been embezzled by prominent persons including senior politicians.
Responding to the introduction of the bill, BJP MLA from Vijayapura Basanagouda Patil Yatnal said he had written to the prime minister seeking to repeal the “draconian” and “unconstitutional” Waqf Act on August 4, last year.
“The proposed bill seeks to amend the Waqf Act which would check the sweeping powers of Waqf Board to declare any land as its own property. It also proposes to change the composition of the Central Waqf Council and State Waqf Boards. Once this bill becomes a law, Waqf cannot tag any property as Waqf asset,” said Yatnal welcoming the move to amend the law which he dubbed as a “tool” to grab assets of innocent people.
In his letter, Yatnal noted that a total of 8.54 lakh properties spread across eight lakh acres of land amounted to an “illegal appropriation” of the national resources.
“It is worth noting that the concept of Waqf does not exist in Muslim-majority countries such as Turkey, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Jordon, Tunisia, and Iraq. The extraordinary powers vested with Waqf Board should be revoked immediately as they legitimise the unlawful occupation of land in the name of charity,” said Yatnal who also opposed the practice of collecting substantial revenue from over four lakh temples, but no monetary contributions are sought from the mosques and the dargahs.
In Karnataka, there are 62,830 waqf properties registered in the Waqf Asset Management System of India portal, against a total of 8.72 lakh assets registered across the country, said Rijiju, replying to a question by Dakshina Kannada MP Captain Brijesh Chowta in the Parliament. But according to the State Minorities Commission report, a large number of Waqf land remains unregistered and those that are registered have rampant encroachment.
It may be recalled that on March 23, 2012, BJP leader Anwar Manippady, who was the chairman of Karnataka State Minorities Commission had submitted the waqf lands report to the state government. The report stated that around 29,000 acres of waqf land (valued at 2.30 lakh crore in 2012) had been encroached and embezzled by political leaders and bureaucrats.
The report alleges the involvement of senior Congress leaders Mallikarjuna Kharge, former Rajya Sabha member Rehman Khan, late chief minister Dharam Singh, former Union minister late C. K. Jaffer Sharief and former minister Qamar ul Islam, former ministers Tanveer Sait and Roshan Baig, Shanthinagar MLA N A Haris MLC C.M. Ibrahim, former minister Hindasgeri, former MP Narasing Rao Suryavamshi and former MLAs Iqbal Ansari and Syed Yasin, along with several IAS and IPS officers belonging to the minority community. This explains why the subsequent governments kept evading tabling of the report till the Supreme Court directions. The Yediyurappa government finally tabled the report in September 2020.
Amid criticism from the Congress party which questioned the jurisdiction of the Commission to conduct raids, Manippady said that Sections 10(1-2) of the Karnataka State Minorities Commission Act, 1994, had authorised the minorities commission chairman to “make recommendations from time to time to the government, which is to be tabled in both houses of the legislature”.
What the Waqf report says
Manipaddy had conducted the first raid in Bidar district after he had received complaints about encroachment in a graveyard. He started visiting every district and documented the extent of encroachment of Waqf land. The report stated that the ‘mutuvalis’ (managers) of Waqf properties and politicians were hand in glove and hence the Waqf lands were shrinking with each survey.
The modus operandi for embezzling the land had shocked the commission too. The mutuvalis appointed by the donor would enter into an understanding with the Waqf Board and procured a NOC to sell the land to a benami and all stakeholders would share the profit. In some cases, the Waqf Board and minorities minister would de-notify the land and sell it. If caught, they would take back the land from the buyer. A rampant practice is also to lease out prime land at throwaway prices to the influential parties.
As Waqf is the third largest landholder in India, after railways and the defence forces, many minority leaders have been mooting reforms to prevent misuse of the land. Fresh survey of Waqf lands, GIS mapping and documentation of Waqf properties, creation of Waqf development councils with non-political appointees, and revision of rentals for Waqf property (not less than 5 per cent of the market value) will help put these assets to good use and prevent its misuse too.
