‘Declaring Munambam land as a Waqf property was a land-grabbing tactic of the Waqf Board’, says Kerala HC. Read how the Waqf Board tried to displace 600 families
In a significant decision, a division bench of the Kerala High Court on Friday (10th October) held that the Kerala Waqf Board’s decision to declare the disputed land in Munambam a waqf property was “bad in law” and was a “land-grabbing tactic”.
A Division Bench of Justices SA Dharmadhikari and Justice Syam Kumar VM also set aside the order of a Single Bench passed in March this year, quashing the Kerala government’s decision ordering the formation of an inquiry commission to examine the rights of about 600 families facing eviction from the disputed land. The decision was passed by a Single Bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas after members of the Waqf Samrakshana Samithi challenged the state government’ order before the High Court.
The Single Bench had held that the commission, appointed in November 2024, led by retired Justice CN Ramachandran Nair to recommend solutions, lacked the authority to intervene in the matter already decided or pending before the Kerala Waqf Board under the Waqf Act, 1995. Overturning the Single Bench’s decision, the Division Bench said that the petitioners had no locus standi to challenge the state government’s order before the Single Bench. “The original writ petitioners do not possess the locus standi to have instituted the writ petition before the Single Bench, which clearly ought not to have been entertained at their instance,” the Division Bench noted.
The dispute relates to around 404 acres of land located in the coastal region of Munambam in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. It houses around 600 families, primarily of Christians from the Latin Catholic community and Hindus from backward sections, who have been residing there for decades. In 2019, the disputed land was declared as the waqf property by the Kerala Waqf Board based on a 1950 waqf deed executed by one Mohammed Siddeeq Sait, which dedicated the land to the management of the Farook College of Kozhikode. The resident families, however, opposed the Waqf Board’s claim, saying that they own the legal rights to the land as they bought it decades ago from Farook College, which was once entrusted with its management.
The declaration of the disputed land as a waqf by the Waqf Board was a sham: HC
The Division Bench called out the Kerala Waqf Board for wrongly declaring the disputed land as waqf property. “…we would hold that the declaration by the KWB in May 2019 of the property as a waqf is a complete sham,” the High Court remarked. Besides, the Division Bench observed that the orders of the Waqf Board were issued with unreasonable delay, and were unenforceable because they violated the law. However, the Bench did not quash the Waqf Board orders, as in the present case, it was only concerned with the state government’s appeal against the single bench’s order of quashing its decision to form an inquiry commission.
“The action of the KWB of declaring/ registering the subject property as a waqf property through its declarations and orders issued in September and October 2019 is bad in law on the grounds of being unreasonably delayed and having been issued in palpable violation of the provisions of the Waqf Acts 1954, 1984, and 1995 and resultantly non-enforceable. However, we restrain ourselves from issuing a formal order of quashing them, since the purpose of returning all the above findings is just to hold that the State Government is not bound by such a highly belatedly issued declaration by the KWB after 7 decades (69 years),” the Court remarked.
Waqf Board’s decision was a land-grabbing tactic: HC
The High Court described the Kerala Waqf Board’s actions as “land-grabbing tactics”, which resulted in the livelihoods of the resident families being affected. “We shall be holding that the notification dated 25.09.2019 notifying the subject property as waqf is ultra vires the provisions of The Waqf Act, 1954, as also The Central Waqf Act, 1995 and nothing less than a land grabbing tactics of KWB which has affected the bread and butter, livelihood of hundreds of families and bonafide occupants who had purchased tranches of land decades prior to the notification of the waqf property,” the High Court noted in its judgment.
“The manner in which the KWB has acted is nothing more than land-grabbing tactics after almost 7 decades, affecting fundamental rights, and the livelihood of hundreds of helpless citizens, who have been left with no choice, but to come down on the roads to launch protests, stage dharnas and agitations, which is what compelled the State Government to take the drastic step of setting up an IC. The brazen manner in which the KWB has acted in the case at hand shows reckless disregard of not only the provisions of the Waqf Act, but also the fundamental rights of a large number of citizens whose livelihood is dependent as bona fide purchasers and occupants on land under dispute”, the Court added.
The 1950 deed that dedicated the land to Farook College was not a waqf deed: HC
Examining the 1950 waqf deed, the Division Bench said that the deed was not a waqf deed but a simple gift deed, which never intended to create a permanent dedication of property “in the favour of the Almighty God”. “The endowment deed of 1950 never intended to create any ‘permanent dedication in favour of the Almighty God’, but was simpliciter a gift deed in favour of the Farooq Management and therefore could have never qualified as a ‘waqf deed’ under any of the enactments of the Waqf Act 1954, 1984, or 1995,” the High Court stated in the judgment.
The High Court noted that a property transferred with the intent of being treated as a waqf ceased to have the waqf character if it is transferred or alienated to a third party. In that case, the property possesses the character of a public charitable entity. “In all the enactments, the common feature about the definition of ‘waqf’ has been that there must be ‘permanent dedication’ by a person professing Islam of the property to be treated as waqf. ‘Permanent dedication’ implies creation of an absolute inalienable interest which is non-reversionary in nature, in the property by the donor in favour of the donee, so that the property may be utilised exclusively for the purposes religious, pious or charitable in nature,” the court explained.
The High Court further explained that it is essential for a document to constitute a waqf deed that it creates a permanent dedication of the property for the waqf. “It is an essential facet of any document to constitute a waqf deed that a waqf must be created having the facets of ‘permanent dedication’ of the property for the purposes of creation of waqf, in the absence of which it doesn’t achieve the attributes of waqf,” the court said.
The court added that since the 1950 deed permitted the donee, Farook College management, to sell, lease or otherwise transfer the property for educational or charitable purposes, it proved that the property was meant for charitable use and not as a waqf. “… the element of ‘permanent dedication’ was never reflected in the said endowment deed, wherein the beneficiary was not only entitled to sell the property, but also utilise the sale proceeds for themselves and there was a specific provision of reversion of the property to the donor or his successor in case any portion of the property still remains,” added the court and held, “Thus in view of the law as discussed above, it can be inferred that there was a clear absence of permanent dedication or any inalienable feature in the endowment deed. Therefore, we deem to attribute it to the character of a gift deed and not a waqf deed”.
Background of the dispute
The dispute dates back to 1902, when the Travancore royal family leased the land to Abdul Sathar Moosa Sait, who was a prominent trader in the region. In 1950, Sait’s son-in-law, Mohammed Siddeeq Sait, registered a deed dedicating the land to the President of the management committee of Farook College of Kozhikode. The deed specifically mentioned that the land would be used for charitable and educational purposes as per Islamic law.
The land got embroiled in a legal battle in the 1960s after the Farook College began the process of eviction of families residing on the land, who had been living there for generations but did not have the official documentation to prove their ownership. The management of the Farook College eventually decided to sell land parcels to the residents at the market price. However, this led to further dispute as the college management did not disclose that the land they were selling was waqf property. The management cited the 1950 gift deed as the basis of their ownership. Subsequently, the Kerala Waqf Board challenged the sale, claiming that the property was a Waqf land, its sale without the Waqf Board’s consent was illegal.
The issue did not hit the headlines until 2009, when the Nissar Commission, appointed by the CPI(M)-led government, announced that Munambam land was indeed waqf property. The commission declared that the sale of the land initiated by Farook College was unauthorised and recommended that the land sold by the college should be recovered. In 2019, a decade after the findings were reported by the Nissar Commission, the Kerala Waqf Board decided to act on it and suo motu declared the land as waqf property under Sections 40 and 41 of the Waqf Act, 1995. The Board then instructed the Revenue Department to cease accepting land taxes from the occupants of the land, effectively undermining the residents’ claims of ownership of the land. In 2022, the Kerala state government overruled the Waqf Board’s directive. However, the Board challenged the decision in the Kerala High Court. The court issued a stay on the state government’s action, leaving the residents in a legal limbo.
Politics around the dispute
The Munambam waqf land dispute also led to protests and political debates in Kerala. The controversy gained a lot of traction when the Centre proposed the Waqf Amendment Bill of 2025, as the Bill had the potential to nullify the illegal claim made by the Kerala Waqf Board on the lands of 600 Christian families in Munambam. While the Bill was being debated in the Parliament, the sole BJP MP from Kerala, Suresh Gopi, said that the legislation would help the Christian residents of Munamabam.
This left the Congress party in a fix, which had been opposing the Waqf Amendment Bill of 2025 to appease the Muslims in Kerala, as well as its ally, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), while also trying to hold on to its Christian votes in the state. Christians constitute 18.4% of Kerala’s population. They have traditionally voted for the Congress party. Trying to monkey balance, the Congress party declared that the Munambam was not a waqf land. However, the Congress party failed to retain the support of its Christian voters, who drifted towards the BJP, helping the party secure its first Lok Sabha seat in the state.
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