Karnataka High Court
The Corporation Of The City Of Bangalore vs The Mysore State Board Of Wakfs And Ors. on 27 September, 1972
Equivalent citations: AIR1973KANT189, AIR1973MYS189, (1973)1MYSLJ, AIR 1973 MYSORE 189
Author: K. Jagannatha Shetty
Bench: K. Jagannatha Shetty
JUDGMENT Govinda Bhat, J.
1. This is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution, by the Corporation of the City of Bangalore, challenging the notification No. MBW. 19(1)84 dated 7-6-1965. published in the Mysore Gazette dated July 22, 1965, under Section 5(2) of the Wakf Act, 1954, hereinafter called the Act.
2. The case of the petitioner is that several lands belonging to the petitioner-Corporation have been listed as Wakf Properties in the impugned list without making any enquiry or investigation under Section 4 of the Act. The contention of the Wakf Board and some of the Mutawallis of the concerned wakfs is that the lands in question (though originally were properties belonging to the Corporation) have been granted to the various wakfs and that the petitioner has no title to the said properties.
3. If the Commissioner, on the basis of whose enquiry under Section 4 of the Act the list of wakfs has been published, is competent to adjudicate upon disputed title to property between the wakfs on the one hand and strangers to the wakfs on the other, then it is necessary for us to consider the grievance made out by the petitioner but if such Commissioner has no jurisdiction to decide disputed title to property, then, it will be futile to quash the impugned notification and to direct the Commissioner to hold an enquiry.
4. In Radhakishan v. State of Rajasthan, the scope of enquiry under Section 4 of the Act and the scope of suit provided, under Section 6 of the Act came up for consideration and It was held that the Commissioner under Section 4 has no jurisdiction to adjudicate whether a particular property is Wakf Property or not and farther the words "any person interested therein" in Sub-section (1) of Section 6, refer to any person interested in the Wakf and not a person stranger to the wakf. It was further stated that Sub-section (4) of Section 6 makes the list final and conclusive only between the Wakf Board, the Mutawalli, and a person interested in the Wakt as defined to Section 3 (h) and no other person, and that, Section 6 cannot apply to the case of property which is in the hands of a stranger over whom the Board has no control under the Act.
5. The Andhra Pradesh High Court in Parvathi Bai v. Wakf Board, (1969)2 Andh WR 265 has taken the same view. It was held therein that the entire scheme of the Act judicates that the Wakf Board's jurisdiction is confined to matters of administration of the Wakfs and not to adjudication of questions of title and that Section 6 (1) of the Act did not invest the Wakf Board with authority to decide the questions whether a particular property belonged to the Wakf or not and certainly so where the person claiming title is a stranger to the Wakf. We are in respectful agreement with the view of the law as stated in the above decisions.
6. In that view, the right of the petitioner in respect of the disputed properties, if it has one, will remain unaffected by the impugned notification. Any dispute between the Wakfs on the one hand and the petitioner on the other has to be decided by a competent Civil Court.
7. For the above reasons, this writ petition is dismissed but without costs.