SC refuses to entertain fresh pleas challenging Waqf (Amendment) Act
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New Delhi (PTI): 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.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
