SC refuses to entertain fresh pleas challenging Waqf (Amendment) Act

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain 13 more petitions challenging constitutional validity of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, saying it cannot add any more pleas as they would become difficult to “handle”.

“We are not going to increase the number of petitions now…This will keep on piling and would become difficult to handle,” a bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said when a battery of lawyers of several petitioners urged that they be also heard along with other petitioners.

The bench, however, asked the petitioners, including Firoz Iqbal Khan, Imran Pratapgadhi, Shaik Muneer Ahmad and Muslim Advocates Association, to intervene in main pleas if they have additional grounds to challenge Waqf law.

“We will hear all…Five cases have been registered. If you want to argue additional points then move impleadment applications,” the CJI said.

The bench passed a similar order on Monday and asked counsel for petitioner Syed Ali Akbar to file an intervention application in pending five cases which will be taken up on May 5 for passing interim orders.

On April 17, the bench decided to hear only five of the total number of pleas before it and titled the case: "In Re: Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025".

About 72 petitions, including those by AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi, All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Anwar Basha former chairman Karnataka State Board of AUQAF represented by advocate Tariq Ahmed, Congress MPs Imran Pratapgarhi and Mohammad Jawed, were filed against the law.

While appointing three lawyers as the nodal counsel, the bench asked the advocates to decide among themselves who was going to argue.

The petitioners were allowed to file their rejoinders to the Centre's reply within five days of the service of the government's response.

"We clarify that the next hearing (May 5) will be for the preliminary objections and for an interim order," the bench said.

The Centre, on April 17, assured the bench that it will neither denotify waqf properties, including "waqf by user", nor make any appointments to the central waqf council and boards till May 5.

The assurance of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta came when he informed the bench headed by the CJI that the waqf law was passed by Parliament with "due deliberations" and it should not be stayed without hearing the government.

Later, the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs filed a preliminary 1,332-page affidavit defending the amended Waqf Act and opposed any "blanket stay" by the court on a "law having presumption of constitutionality passed by Parliament".

The ministry urged the top court to dismiss the pleas challenging the validity of the law, pointing out a "mischievous false narrative" surrounding certain provisions.

The Centre recently notified the Act, which got the assent of President Droupadi Murmu on April 5 after its passage from Parliament following heated debates in both houses.

The bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha with 128 members voting in favour and 95 opposing it.

It was cleared by the Lok Sabha with 288 members supporting it and 232 against it.