Author: Ritu raj singh, Bharati Vidyapeeth New Law College Pune
To the Point
The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 was introduced in order to provide solutions for many existing issues in the administration of waqf properties in India. Based on the Waqf Act, 1995, this amendment aims to introduce modern principles in the administration of these properties, thereby ensuring that they are utilized for their predetermined purposes only.
One of the key aims of the 2025 Amendment is to enhance transparency and accountability. The Act enhances the framework and structures that are meant to maintain a clear and updated list of waqf properties through digitization and databases. This act is aimed at limiting any form of maladministration, transfer, and encroachment that has characterized waqf institutions over time. Increased reporting by Waqf Boards will now promote accountability.
Another prominent feature introduced by the amendment is the definition of the powers and functions of the Waqf Boards. The Amendment clearly demarcates the administrative and oversight roles of the Waqf Boards and removes the possibility of arbitrary actions. At the same time, the Amendment underscores the need to strictly follow the legal procedure in handling property, leasing, and development of waqf properties. This would lead to the use of income from waqf properties for beneficial purposes such as educational institutions and welfare activities.
It mainly emphasizes the aspect of simplified dispute resolution. Through the enhancement of the role of the Waqf Tribunals, the amendment seeks to limit the litigation process that involves the properties of the waqf. This will prevent the postponement of the resolution of disputes, which may lead to the misuse of the properties.
Notably, the 2025 Amendment aims to strike a delicate balance between religious autonomy and the spirit of the Constitution. Thus, while waqf is essentially a religious endowment covered under Articles 25 and 26 of the Indian Constitution, the Act reaffirms that its governance is to be in terms of equality, the rule of law, and public interest.
The above amendment also introduces safeguards against unlawful encroachment, giving the authorities the mandate to act accordingly while upholding due process. This amendment highlights the importance of collaboration between Waqf Boards and government institutions for effective protection of waqf land and properties. Thus, basically, the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 is a piece of reformist legislation with a view to professionalizing the administration of a waqf. By stressing transparency, accountability, and effective dispute resolution, this legislation strives to revive community confidence in a waqf institution and ensure that a waqf property is utilized for its social-religious intention within a modern constitutional setup.
Use of legal jargon
The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 can be regarded as a major legislative intervention that aims to consolidate the legal framework pertaining to the auqaf in India and thereby address the long-pending concerns associated with maladministration, encroachment, and a lack of transparency within the auqaf sector in the country. The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 was thereby introduced as an amendment to the Waqf Act of 1995.
In essence, the Amendment Act makes amendments to the role and power balance of the Waqf Boards, increasing the regulatory oversight and binding them with more rigorous fiduciary duties, as required by mutawallis. There are more rigorous provisions relating to the survey, registration, and digitalization of the waqf properties, thus aiming to limit the cases of fraud, benami transactions, as well as unauthorised alienations of the waqf properties.
Additionally, the Act also ensures a rationalisation of the interface between Waqf Tribunals and civil courts, with an intention of avoiding protracted litigation and conflict of jurisdictions. Through procedural safeguards, the amendment also ensures a speedy resolution of waqf-related disputes, keeping in mind the right to access justice as provided under Article 14 and Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
At the same time, the 2025 Amendment emphasized compliance with the norms of secular governance in this respect, reaffirming that waqfs are governed by laws requiring them to operate in the broader public interest despite their faith nature. There are also rules pertaining to enhanced auditing procedures that reflect the ideology that no religious endowment can run in opposition to the ‘rule of law.’
In conclusion, the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 is an effort through legislation that aims at creating a subtle linkage between the autonomy that needs to exist in religious practices and the regulation that has to come through statute in order for the waqfs to function effectively in an open and Constitutional manner.
The Proof
Constitutional and legal basis of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 lies in its compliance with the Legislative Competency, Procedural Due Process requirement, and the aim of improving the administration of waqf properties within the framework of the guarantee for religious freedoms in the Constitution of India. Parliamentary power for the legislation of matters under the waqf falls within the Entry 10 of the Concurrent List or List III, that includes trusts and trustees generally, as well as religious and charitable endowments. Thus, the Waqf Act is sound on Legislative Competency under Articles 245 and 246 of the Constitution.
On substance, the Act is made necessary by empirical evidence of widespread mismanagement, encroachment, and lack of transparency in the administration of waqf property. There was evidence from the Sachar Committee reports and statutory audits pointing to widespread losses of waqf property on account of poor record-keeping and regulatory oversight. The 2025 Amendment makes the Act necessary by ensuring the digitization of waqf records, enhancing the powers and accountability of Waqf Boards, and ensuring better procedures for waqf property registration, survey, and dispute resolution. This makes the Act necessary in the absence of rational nexus on the grounds of object, thereby satisfying Article 14, equality in respect to the Right to Equality.
Further, the Act does not violate Articles 25 and 26, which relate to freedom of religion and management of religious affairs. Indeed, precedents such as ‘Syed Mohammed Salie Labbai v. Mohd. Hanifa’ hold that while religious property can be administered by secular laws of the State, this will not entail any direct violation of religious freedom. This applies to the extent that “the Amendment Act of 2025 falls within its regulatory scope.”
From a procedural perspective, the Act embodies checks and balances in terms of notice, hearing, appeal, and judicial control, in order to comply with these principles of natural justice. Accordingly, the challenge to the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 relies upon constitutional validity, classification, administrative necessity, and proportionality, in which case this corrective measure becomes a judicially sustainable reform.
Abstract
“The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 is a very important legislative initiative taken by the Indian Parliament in order to improve the matters related to the management and administration of the waqf properties in the country. The Act is introduced as an amendment to the Waqf Act, 1995 and is intended to deal with the problems of mismanagement, encroachment, lack of transparency, and litigation pertaining to the waqf properties that exist in the country,” concludes the research.
Enhancing the powers and duties of the Waqf Boards and the Central Waqf Council is an important aim of the 2025 Amendment. This is because the Act has ensured more rigid compliance procedures, more streamlined procedures for registering and surveying waqf properties, and the use of electronic record-keeping, resulting in the prevention of any fraudulent claims or unauthorized alienations of waqf properties. This is because the aspect of transparency has been emphasized.
The Act also deals with dispute resolution mechanisms through simplification of adjudication procedures and elimination of unnecessary overlaps of jurisdictions, thus minimizing delays in waqf-related disputes and litigation. Provisions under audit, inspection, and mutawallis (the manager of a waqf) accountability have been strengthened for better regulation and against misappropriation of funds. In addition, the amendment attempts a balance between communal requirements and constitutional tenets, through harmonization of waqf regulation with norms of equality, rule of law, and accountability.
On balance, it can be said that in attempting to reconcile the religio-charitable nature of waqfs with the demands of efficacious, transparent, as well as robust administration, in fact, the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 embodies a step in the right direction in terms of improving the governance of waqfs, as well as protecting waqf properties for their beneficiaries.
Case Laws
Dispute over Munambam land by Kerala HC
Although not directly under the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025, a recent Kerala High Court judgment in the Munambam land dispute highlights the consequences of unclear waqf status and delayed administrative action under waqf law. In this long-running case, the Court lambasted the Kerala Waqf Board for failing to act for nearly seven decades before declaring a large tract of land as waqf property. The bench termed the delay “illegal, arbitrary” and warned that such laxity could invite unwarranted claims over government properties, including iconic landmarks if not checked.
While predating the 2025 Amendment, this case underscores why many argued reform was necessary-poor documentation and administrative inertia had left Waqf properties vulnerable to encroachment and litigation, themes that the Amendment Act purports to address, such as through mandatory registration and digitization.
Conclusion
The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 is a substantial legislative measure aimed at updating the management of waqf properties in India while taking into account concerns raised for a rather lengthy period regarding their possible misuse through a lack of transparency and disagreements. By improving those procedural matters, this legislation seeks to ensure that the waqf property is maintained and used solely for religious, charitable, and social purposes, while in the process, it tries to strike a delicate balance between protecting minorities and upholding a particular constitutional obligation to ensure accountability and adherence to the Rule of Law.
Improving the efficiency of administration of the waqf property is among the main aims of the proposed change to the Constitution by the year 2025. Improved record keeping, delimitation of powers, and the dispute resolution scheme are some anti-arbitrariness measures that can make the administration of the waqf property more accountable to the people. These measures, if well implemented, can help to make the beneficiaries more confident in the administration of the property.
On the other hand, the Act equally emphasizes the need for regulatory oversight to ensure that the management of waqf aligns with the constitutional principles of equality, justice, and the principle of due process. In other words, while the religious endowments are given independence through the amendment, it never means that the principle of independence can be operational in a vacuum. Here, there is a legislative shift in realizing that the waqf property can indeed fall under public interest.
However, the actual impact that the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 will eventually attain can only be ascertained by its implementation. A proper coordination among the Waqf boards, the state, as well as the judicial system, is required in this regard.
This amendment is a progressive move toward the reforms required in the Waqf administration, but it will be imperative to note that proper monitoring and judicial alertness will be required for the accomplishment of these objectives.
FAQs
What is the Waqf (Amendment) Act, It is a fresh legislation that amends the Waqf Act of 1995, which tries to revamp the management, transparency, and administration of the Waqf properties in India. The legislation has been passed by the Indian parliament and has received presidential approval in April 2025.
For what purposes was it used?
According to the government, the reforms are intended to digitize documents, reduce the level of mismanagement, protect the Waqf land from encroachment, as well as ensure that the revenues are used for the welfare of the people in the Waqf properties.
How does it affect Waqf governance?
It makes it mandatory to include non-Muslim members on the boards of the State and Central Waqf, and it brings in administrators with expertise. There will be online registration and auditation of all properties.
What about property claims?
The Act strikes down the concept of “waqf by user” in new declarations, and only those who follow Islam after a certain period of time will be able to newly declare a Waqf.
5 How are disputes resolved?
The Waqf Tribunals are still in action, and appeals are filed up to the Higher Courts, with the aim of settling land disputes quickly
6. Are encroached lands covered by the Act? Yes – Tougher measures are enforced for identification of and retrieval of illegally occupied Waqf lands.
7. What about women’s participation? Under the Act, women are represented on the Waqf Boards. Additionally, the Act ensures the rights of inheritance are preserved, particularly for the widowed and the divorced.
8. Is the law being challenged? Yes. Cases alleging violations of the Constitution and discrimination are currently pending before the Supreme Court. Certain essential aspects, such as the need to follow Islam for an fixed interval, are currently stayed by the Supreme Court.
9. What are the main criticisms? Critics argue that it damages religious freedoms, leads to more government intervention and favoritism, and discriminates against Muslim foundations relative to other religious endowments.
