Dispute
The Madras High Court has declared unconstitutional a 2010 amendment, which brought waqf properties under the ambit of the Tamil Nadu Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1976, and empowered the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board Chief Executive Officer to order eviction of encroachers as Estate Officer.
2010 amendment had been brought in by exercising the power under List III (Concurrent list) and not List II (State list) of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution and, therefore, a Presidential assent ought to have been obtained for it in view of its repugnancy with the Central law.
The parliamentary law intends to secure the protection of waqf properties, which requires uniformity of law and consistency of its application all over the country.
The Central Act is thus made as an exhaustive code on the subject.
Authority
The chief justice of Tamil Nadu declared the amendment made by the State legislature repugnant to the Waqf Act of 1995, a Central legislation.
The judges held that encroachers of waqf properties could be evicted only by waqf tribunals, constituted pursuant to an amendment made to the Central legislation in 2013.
COMMENTS