A division bench of Telangana High Court on Friday issued notices to the State and Central governments and the State Waqf board for filing a counter affidavit in two weeks in the petition filed alleging that the places of worship i.e two Waqf notified mosques and one temple situated inside the old Secretariat buildings were demolished without following due process.
This was contrary to various provisions of Muslim Personal Law, Waqf Act, Hindu law, Religious endowment Act and Places of worship Act, said the petition.
The HC refused to pass any interim order without knowing the government’s stand on demolition of ‘places of worship’ inside the old Secretariat buildings complex.
The bench comprising Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy was dealing with the petition filed by Tahreek Muslim Shabban, an organisation represented by its president Mohammed Mushtaq Mallik, complaining that the State government had proposed to construct only one mosque and one temple, and the land pertaining to second mosque was being utilised for construction of new Secretariat building.
The petitioner urged the court to direct the State government to produce the approved building construction plan along with relevant records of the new Secretariat building to be constructed at Saifabad.
The petitioner’s counsel said it was a settled preposition of law that once a Waqf property it was always so and the nature of its property cannot be changed or altered. He urged the court to direct the government not to carry out any construction activities over the Waqf land admeasuring about 700 sq yards belonging to Masjid-e-Mohammadi Jamia, popularly known as Secretariat mosque, Masjid-e-Hashmi, and Nallapochamma temple inside the Secretariat premises.
After hearing the case, the bench issued notices to the authorities concerned for filing counter affidavit. The bench directed the registry to tag the present case with similar petitions pending before the court and posted the matter to October 15 for further hearing.