Government advisor Mohammed Ali Shabbir on Monday deemed the Supreme Court’s interim stay on select provisions of the Waqf (Amendment) Act 2025 a “decisive recognition” of the apprehensions articulated by minority populations, civil society organisations, and scholars of constitutional law.
Shabbir, a petitioner against the provisions of the statute, characterised the apex court’s suspension of the most contentious stipulations as fundamentally crucial. “The court has stayed the clause mandating that a waiver-generating individual must have been a practising Muslim for five years, as well as the clause empowering state officers to resolve disputes concerning waqf encroachments. Both provisions represented the most insidious aspects of the 2025 amendments, and we welcome the prompt judicial check,” he remarked.
The interim direction does not entail a suspension of the entire legislation; nevertheless, Shabbir emphasised that the relief granted is not a mere acknowledgement, but rather a judicial corrective. Its issuance evinces attention to the inadequacies in drafting and to provisions that, in intent, undermine constitutional guarantees.
Ali further contended that the stipulation requiring a prospective waqf founder to verify five uninterrupted years of observant Muslim practice was discriminatory and inconsistent with the principles of waqf cultivated by Indian Islamic law over the centuries. He remarked, “The BJP-led NDA government at the Centre sought to impose a regime of religious monitoring on proprietary rights by embedding capricious liturgical criteria. Such a provision can only serve as a conduit for harassment, exclusion, and chaos in the courts.”
On the other clause subject to a stay, which invested government-named officers with the authority to determine encroachment claims vis-à-vis waqf property, Ali maintained that the provision undermined the guarantees of due process. Encroachment claims, he noted, ordinarily necessitate the due solemnity of a judicial forum, as distinctive rules of evidence and burdens of proof attach to them. “The capacity of a waqf board to re-assert proprietary title is inseparable from the maintenance of an impartial court process. Entrusting executive officers with quasi-judicial authority in regard to proprietary encroachments is manifestly ultra vires and poses an inordinate risk to property rights.”
Shabbir Ali reaffirmed that the ongoing litigation is entirely rooted in the obligation to uphold the constitutional entitlements of Muslims in the subcontinent, not in any partisan agenda. “Our reliance remains the text of the Constitution itself. This provisional order more than reassures us, and we shall pursue the cause—through courts, communities, and campuses—until the Republic’s pluralist DNA regains its full vitality,” he stated.
Although pleased by the temporary safeguards, Ali urged restraint in characterising the outcome as definitive. He emphasised that numerous sections of the contested statute continue to operate, and the Court’s eventual assessment of the entire statute’s constitutional standing is still pending. “Neither any charge of waqfs, nor any demand of due process, extinguishes until the final curve is struck. Be under no misapprehension—every clause that crops and compacts our guarantees, that parcels Muslim safeguards atom by atom, is destined to meet resolute, legal, and constitutional push until we score the conclusive conclusion,” he said.
