#Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 : Supreme Court Tells Petitioners That They Needed A Strong And Glaring Ccase For Interim Releif

Underscoring the ‘presumption of constitutionality in favour of law’, the Supreme Court said petitioners challenging the waqf law needed a ‘strong and glaring’ case for interim relief.

As reported by PTI, A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih commenced the hearing on a batch of pleas challenging the validity of Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 for passing interim orders on three issues, including the power to de-notify properties declared as ‘waqf by courts, waqf-by-user or waqf by deed’.

“There is a presumption of constitutionality in favour of every statute. For interim relief, you have to make out a very strong and glaring case. Otherwise, presumption of constitutionality will be there,” the CJI said when senior advocate Kapil Sibal, leading the charge against the legislation, began his submissions.

Sibal described the law as a ‘complete departure from historical legal and constitutional principles’ and a means to ‘capture waqf through a non-judicial process’.

Centre’s Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had urged the bench to confine the hearing on pleas to three issues.

One of the issues is the power to de-notify properties declared as waqf by courts, waqf-by-user or waqf by deed.

The second issue relates to the composition of state waqf boards and the Central Waqf Council, where they contend only Muslims should operate except ex-officio members whereas the last one is over the provision stipulating a waqf property won’t be treated as a waqf when the collector conducts an inquiry to ascertain if the property is government land.