Who Owns Mars? Unpacking Waqf’s Land Claims and the Congress Connection

Humans have reached Mars and are possibly seeing Mars as an alternative to Earth to sustain human life but did we even try to find out Mars belongs to whom? Nope!!! We never tried, we never will because we humans take some special pleasure in curtailing the rights of Indian minorities. Yes!! Mars is a property of the Waqf Board!!!!

Claims of Parliament building being Waqf property

AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal recently claimed that the Parliament building and its surrounding areas in the national capital were built on Waqf property. Not only did he claim Parliament being Waqf property Badruddin Ajmal also claimed that the area around Vasant Vihar, extending to the airport in the national capital, has been built on Waqf property.

Claims of ownership of 7 Hindu villages and 1500 old temple

In September 2022, a startling case emerged from Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, where the Waqf Board claimed ownership of seven Hindu villages, alongside a 1,500-year-old temple, the Sundareswarar temple. This unexpected assertion sent shockwaves through the local community and raised significant concerns regarding land rights and religious heritage.

Congress Connection

A religious body becoming the third largest land owner is surprising and that too a religious body of the minority community. Waqf board in India is the third largest land owner only behind the Indian Railways and the Department of Defence with 5 lakhs properties registered and with 6 lakh acres of land in its name whose worth is close to Rs 1.20 lakh crore. 

The Indian National Congress, the country’s oldest political party, is accused of facilitating the transfer of land to minority religious organizations. Allegations suggest that just before the announcement of the Model Code of Conduct in 2014, the Congress government gifted approximately 123 high-value properties to the Delhi Wakf Board. It is claimed that, with a simple stroke of a pen, the party relinquished its ownership of these lands, which it had inherited after Independence. On March 5, 2014, the UPA administration denotified these 123 prime properties, thereby legitimizing what has been described as the illegal land acquisition by the Wakf Board.

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Records indicate that 61 of the disputed properties were under the jurisdiction of the Land and Development Office within the Union Urban Development Ministry, while 62 were managed by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). Notably, Kamal Nath presided over the ministry at the time of this controversial cabinet ratification. The properties surrendered by the UPA included prime locations in Connaught Place, Janpath, Mathura Road, and Karol Bagh, among others. This transfer of ownership rights ostensibly enabled the Delhi Wakf Board to undertake construction and renovation projects on these valuable assets.

However, Vishwa Hindu Parishad challenged this apparent act of appeasement. The Indraprastha team of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) contested the UPA’s actions in the Delhi High Court but in August 2014, the High Court asked to maintain the status quo which led to the Delhi Wakf Board grab the properties.

However in 2023, Centre under the BJP government claimed all the properties back from the Delhi Waqf. The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs recently de-notified 123 properties in Delhi as belonging to the Delhi Waqf Board. A two-member committee, led by Retired Delhi High Court Judge S.P. Garg was formed in accordance with a 2014 Delhi High Court order to investigate these properties. The committee’s report concluded that the Waqf Board had no stake in the properties, as it failed to appear or file any claims, leading to its absolution from related matters.