Supreme Court: a challenge to notified wakf property must come within one year of the Gazette notice

Restoring a permanent injunction in favour of the Telangana State Wakf Board over land adjoining a mosque, dargah and graveyard, the Supreme Court held that a dispute over whether property is wakf property must be raised within one year of the publication of the list of wakfs under Section 5(2) of the Wakf Act, 1954, running from the date of knowledge of that publication. The Board's suit for injunction, decreed by the trial court, had been set aside by the High Court on the ground that the absence of an occupancy certificate or revenue records made it doubtful that the land was wakf property, or that the defendants were not in possession of it. Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran disagreed, holding that the Survey Commissioner's report and the Gazette notification under Sections 4 and 5(2) of the Act stood unchallenged, and that neither the defendants nor their vendors had disputed the wakf notification within the one-year limitation period, or claimed that they learnt of it only later.

Since the challenge to the wakf status was time-barred, the notified status could no longer be questioned, and the Board's possession was restored. The appeal was allowed, the injunction granted by the trial court was made absolute, and two connected contempt petitions against the opposing party were dismissed.