'I've Visited Churches, Dargahs...': CJI Gavai Counters Kapil Sibal During Waqf Hearing
Last Updated:
During the hearing, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioners, said the idea behind the Waqf Act is to "capture" entire the Muslim body
A hearing is underway in the Supreme Court on the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India B R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih is hearing the batch of pleas challenging the new act.
During the hearing, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioners, said the idea behind the Waqf Act is to 'capture" entire the Muslim body.
'This is a case in which the 2025 Act has been framed for protection of Waqf but the design is such that it is to capture the Waqf. If you go to the Mosque, there is no chadaava (offering), they don't have thousands of crores like temples," Sibal said.
Countering Sibal's argument, CJI Gavai said, 'I've visited churches, Dargahs.. it is often done."
Sibal further said that the state cannot finance a religious institution.
During the hearing on May 20, the top court said it would hear arguments for passing interim directions on three issues including the power to denotify properties declared as waqf by courts, waqf-by-user or waqf by deed. The bench had clarified it will not be considering any plea for a stay of provisions of the erstwhile 1995 waqf law on May 20.
Former CJI Sanjiv Khanna, whose bench was hearing the matter, demitted office on May 13, and the matters were transferred to the bench headed by Justice Gavai.
On April 17, the Centre assured the top court that it would neither denotify waqf properties, including 'waqf by user", nor make any appointments to the central waqf council and boards till May 5.
The Centre had opposed the apex court's proposal to pass an interim order against the denotification of waqf properties, including 'waqf by user" aside from staying a provision allowing the inclusion of non-Muslims in the central waqf councils and boards.
On April 25, the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs filed a preliminary 1,332-page affidavit defending the amended Waqf Act of 2025 and opposed any 'blanket stay" by the court on a 'law having presumption of constitutionality passed by Parliament".
The Centre notified the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 last month after it got President Droupadi Murmu's assent on April 5.
The bill was cleared by Lok Sabha with the support of 288 members while 232 MPs were against it. The Rajya Sabha saw 128 members voting in its favour and 95 against it.
First Published:
May 20, 2025, 12:00 IST
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
12 minutes ago
- Time of India
SC junks Pakistani Christian's plea for citizenship ignoring CAA cut-off
Supreme Court NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain the plea of a Goa-born Pakistani Catholic man, who sought a direction to the Centre to allow him citizenship under Citizenship Amendment Act , 2019 citing religious persecution in Pakistan even though he arrived in India six years after the Jan 2014 cutoff date. Jude Mendes, who was born in Goa to a Pakistani national in 1987 but completed his studies at Karachi in Pakistan, arrived in India in 2016 on a long-term visa which has been extended till June this year and even got his Aadhaar card made in 2020. He married an Indian woman in February this year. Three days after the Pahalgam terror attack on tourists by Pak-backed terrorists, India on April 25 cancelled all kinds of visas given to Pakistani nationals. However, long term visas, which Mendes has, have not been revoked. Mendes' visa expires on June 20. Advocate Raghav Awasthi told a partial working day bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Manmohan that "the Petitioner is born in India and is a Roman Catholic which being a minority community is heavily persecuted in Pakistan. He cannot travel to Pakistan to renew his passport which is expiring on 20.06.2025 due to the threat to his life and that therefore, he ought to be granted extension of his long-term visa. " The petitioner said in the event of his deportation to Pakistan, the petitioner who was born in India and now lawfully married to an Indian citizen, would face imminent threat to his life because of extreme religious persecution in Pakistan. At present he works as a chef in Goa. But the bench said that he would have to move the Bombay HC for the relief he is seeking. The petitioner's lawyer withdrew the plea to move the HC. Under CAA, India had resolved to grant citizenship to those individuals from minority communities who have been persecuted in neighbouring countries on the ground of religion. However, the law stipulated that they should have entered India prior to Jan 1, 2014.
India Today
41 minutes ago
- India Today
10% Maratha reservation to continue this year, hearing on fresh pleas from July 18
The Maratha reservation issue will once again come under judicial scrutiny, with a newly constituted full bench of the Bombay High Court set to begin hearings on fresh pleas from July 18. However, the 10 per cent reservation in education and government jobs given to the Maratha community will continue this bench, comprising Justices Ravindra Ghuge, NJ Jamadar and Sandeep Marne, announced on Wednesday that they would devote half-days, full working days and even some Saturdays - ordinarily court holidays - to complete the hearing hearing pertains to challenges against the Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act, 2024, which grants 10 per cent reservation in education and government jobs to the Maratha community. Under this order, any admission or job appointment made under the SEBC Act remains subject to final court directions. The matter was previously heard by a bench led by then-Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya. However, proceedings halted after his transfer to the Delhi High Court in January. Following this, some students approached the Supreme Court, citing harm to their admission prospects due to the ongoing legal uncertainty. The top court subsequently directed the Bombay High Court to constitute a new full bench, which has now taken Wednesday's hearing, senior advocate Pradeep Sancheti, representing the petitioners, urged the bench to expedite proceedings as the academic admission cycle was underway. He argued that, unlike job appointments, delayed admissions would be harder to rectify, even with the interim order in General Dr Birendra Saraf, appearing for the Maharashtra government, said the state needed more time to respond to the latest petition filed in court. He maintained that the interim order provided adequate safeguards and questioned the urgency shown by the petitioners. He also suggested that the petitioners withdraw the new plea if they were unwilling to allow time for the state to considering the submissions, the bench scheduled the hearing for five weeks SEBC Act, passed on February 20 last year by the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government, followed recommendations by the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission (MSBCC) led by retired Justice Sunil Shukre. The commission had concluded that "exceptional circumstances and extraordinary situations" warranted reservation for the Maratha community beyond the 50 per cent cap mandated by the Supreme legislation, which came just ahead of the Lok Sabha and assembly elections, sparked a series of public interest litigations and petitions challenging its constitutional validity. Simultaneously, numerous intervention applications have been filed by Maratha organisations defending the reservation and opposing the addition to the reservation issue, petitions have also been filed questioning the legality of Justice Shukre's appointment as chairperson of the Watch
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Bengal makes minor tweaks to OBC list struck down by HC
1 2 Kolkata: Bengal's new OBC list, tabled by state govt in the assembly on Tuesday, has minor changes compared to the previous list. While the earlier list, struck down by the Calcutta High Court, had 113 OBC subgroups with 77 Muslim and 36 others, the new OBC list has 140 subgroups, 80 of them Muslim. Supreme Court is hearing a challenge by Bengal govt against the HC scrapping of the earlier list, impacting around 5 lakh OBC certificates. The state had told the SC that it would complete its fresh OBC survey by the end of June. The survey tabled on Tuesday also indicated that state is hearing representations from 50 more OBC groups. The percentage of Muslims in the new OBC list is 57.1. While there are 73.4% Muslims in the OBC 'A' category (in a total of 49 subgroups, 36 are Muslims and 13 non-Muslims), OBC 'B' has 48.3% Muslims (there are 91 subgroups, of which 44 are Muslims, and 47 are non-Muslims). The HC ruling had reduced 17% OBC reservations in the state to 7%. The report tabled on Tuesday allows Bengal govt to restore OBC reservation to 17%, allocating 7% for OBC 'A' and 10% for OBC 'B'. This is set to increase slightly with 50 additional groups being evaluated. The legal deadlock on the OBC issue had an overriding impact in Bengal, from pausing admissions to schools, colleges and universities to state govt recruitments. CM Mamata Banerjee, speaking in the assembly on Tuesday, had said that the issuance of OBC certificates for college admissions and govt jobs would resume immediately. "Many recruitment boards kept the process on hold due to the legal confusion. That will now be resolved," Banerjee had said, adding, "Backwardness, not religion, was the sole criterion in the fresh OBC survey." On Tuesday, Bengal leader of opposition Suvendu Adhikari had alleged that the OBC list was flawed and stemmed from "appeasement politics". He said that there were only 11 Muslim groups out of 66 OBC groups before 2010. Adhikari went on to claim that OBC in Bengal meant 'one-sided beneficiary'. Questioning Adhikari's facts, Trinamool Congress had said in a statement on Tuesday: "Suvendu Adhikari, we all know that 'divide and rule' is the official policy of BJP, and your only agenda for the 2026 elections is to pit Hindus against Muslims. But CM Mamata Banerjee has made it crystal clear that backwardness, not religion, is the sole criterion for OBC status. The new list was prepared with that principle in mind. So stop misleading the people with your lies."
