In Re: The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025

Facts

• The Waqf (Amendment) Act 2025, Act No 14 of 2025, received Presidential assent on 5 April 2025 and was brought into force on 8 April 2025 by notification of the Ministry of Minority Affairs. It renamed the Waqf Act 1995 as the Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development Act, 1995, commonly abbreviated the UMEED Act, and made extensive changes including the introduction of S.3A requiring the waqif to be the lawful owner competent to transfer or dedicate the property, the amendment of the definition of "waqf" in S.3(r) to require five years of practising Islam, the removal of waqf by user as a mode of creation, provisions on government property in S.3C, and the inclusion of non Muslim members in the Central Waqf Council and State Waqf Boards.
• The Act was challenged by numerous petitioners including politicians, activists and civic groups. The petitions were clubbed on 17 April 2025 under the composite title, the lead petition being Writ Petition (Civil) No 269 of 2025. On 17 April 2025 the Court had directed that no waqf property, "whether registered, unregistered, or waqf by user", be denotified, altered or interfered with until the next hearing, and on 21 April 2025 the Union informed the Court that it was holding the waqf by user clause and the non Muslim appointment provisions in abeyance pending decision.

Issue

1. At the interim stage, whether the operation of the Waqf (Amendment) Act 2025, or any of its provisions, should be stayed pending final adjudication of the challenge to its constitutional validity.

Held

• The Act as a whole was not stayed. Striking down a statute is reserved for the rarest of cases and the presumption is always in favour of constitutionality; no prima facie case had been made out against the 2025 amendment as a whole. The Chief Justice noted that the petitioners' challenge was centred on specific provisions, namely Ss.3(r), 3C and 14 and related clauses.
• Interim stays granted on S.3(r) as to the five year practising Islam requirement, until the States frame guidelines for determining who is a practising Muslim; and on the proviso to S.3C(2), S.3C(3) and S.3C(4), on separation of powers grounds.
• Directions given as to non dispossession and titles pending final adjudication, the prohibition on a waqf creating third party rights pending adjudication, the caps of four and three non Muslim members on the Central Council and State Boards respectively with Boards to strive for a Muslim ex officio chairperson, and the extension of time for registration.
• Held not to require interim relief: the inclusion of non Muslim members in the statutory councils and Boards, their functions being secular and advisory.

Ratio Decidendi

Why the Act as a whole survived the interim challenge. The Court applied the ordinary presumption of constitutionality with particular force to a statute passed after extended legislative process, and treated a wholesale stay as an exceptional remedy. The reasoning matters for the eventual final hearing: the Court has already indicated that the challenge stands or falls on specific provisions rather than on the scheme of the amendment. Why S.3(r) was stayed but only conditionally. The vice identified was not the requirement of religious adherence as such but the absence of any mechanism for determining it. Without a procedure for establishing who has been practising Islam for five years, the requirement is an invitation to arbitrary decision making, which offends the stand