On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to allow more time within which the waqf property information can be uploaded on the digital portal that Centre recently introduced. The Court observed that the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2024 offers a statutory solution to extensions, which can permit applicants to address the Waqf Tribunal rather than directly address the apex court.
Justices Dipankar Datta and A.G. Masih, in their bench said, we have taken notice to the proviso of Section 3B(1). As the remedy before the tribunal exists, we permit the petitioners to resort to the tribunal. A number of applicants, including senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi who had represented them, had sought extension due to technical glitches in the portal, which they claimed had rendered it virtually impossible to have uploaded in time.
The portal is the Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development Portal, which was created on June 6 and is a digital platform that is meant to be a centralized platform aimed at modernizing and streamlining the management of waqf property. The portal requires live data, disclosure and access to accepted information by the public. The six month registration period will run out on December 6 and it has been raising concerns among the mutawallis and state officials on whether the process would be completed.
Sibal claimed that the period was impractical given the size of information demanded. There would be close to 10 lakh mutawallis to seek tribunal in case of the deadline. We would like to obey, but are practically impossible, he filed. Singhvi continued to say that the technical problems raised by some states were in need of immediate resolutions.
The bench however found that the Supreme Court had never stayed Section 3B(1) during the preceding interim hearings. We are not able to remake the statute. It is advisable that parties avail themselves of the law when it comes across a remedy, as the Court said, that there are real cases that could be availed before tribunals.
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