Sunni Waqf Board challenges legitimacy of IICF in High Court

The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board has challenged the legitimacy of the Indo Islamic Cultural Foundation Trust in Allahabad High Court. The IICF trust has been formed to construct a grand mosque, hospital, museum, research centre, and community kitchen on five acres of land in Ayodhya.

Prayagraj: The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board has challenged the legitimacy of the Indo Islamic Cultural Foundation Trust in Allahabad High Court. The IICF trust has been formed to construct a grand mosque, hospital, museum, research centre, and community kitchen on five acres of land in Ayodhya. The petitioner (Sunni Central Waqf Board) has demanded that the documents related to the formation of the trust be called for and cancelled. They also demanded that the formation of the trust should be stopped as well.

The court said that the documents which have been sought to be cancelled are not even filed with the petition. In such a situation, the documents which are not present in the court, cannot be considered for cancellation. The Allahabad High Court, meanwhile, has issued four weeks to file the documents in the High Court.

A further hearing will be held on July 26. The High Court has also made it clear that the petition will be automatically rejected if documents were not filed in the court. The order was given by a division bench comprising of Chief Justice Sanjay Yadav and Justice Prakash Padia on a public interest litigation filed by Nadeem Ahmed and others.

The petition also sought to quash the notification of the formation of the trust issued on July 1, 2020. On this, the court said that this notification has been declared valid in other public interest litigations. The Supreme Court ordered five acres of land outside the city for the mosque as part of its landmark judgement on the Ram Mandir dispute. Following that, the Indo Islamic Cultural Foundation Trust was formed to oversee the construction of the mosque. The UP Sunni Waqf board claims that the documents for the trust formation are not valid.

Meanwhile, the Allahabad High Court has issued a notice on the petition filed against the validity of the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board election held on March 11, 2021, and has sought a response from the opposition, including the state government. The next hearing of the petition will be on July 9. This order has been passed by a division bench of Justice Dr Kaushal Jayendra Thaker and Justice Dinesh Pathak on the petition filed by Allama Jamir Naqvi and others.

Senior Advocate SFA Naqvi argued the case and informed that the former member Zafar Farooqui has been elected Chairman of the board. When he was a member, the waqf land was sold illegally. A case was registered in 2009 in this regard. However, after getting elected as the Chairman, he has ordered the withdrawal of the case in his favour.

The petition also mentioned that the audit of the board's account is not being done for decades. The advocate informed the court that the Waqf Act section 46 and 47 have a provision to conduct an audit every year. He further alleged that these rules are being ignored. The High Court has issued notice to the opposition for their answers.