KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday orally observed that it will pass an interim order granting protection from dispossession to the residents of Munambam until they file a civil suit or obtain an interim stay from a civil court.
The remarks came on a petition filed by Joseph Benny and seven others from Munambam, who had purchased land from the managing committee of Farook College, Kozhikode, challenging certain provisions in the Waqf Act.
The Division Bench said residents have to get a declaration that they are the owners. The court said it could not decide on the dispute, which, it asserted, was essentially a property dispute.
The petitioners argued that the Waqf Board was taking steps to evict the petitioners and 600 other families from the land saying the property land belonged to the board. Revenue officials, they said, had refused to mutate the land documents at the request of the chief executive officers of the board.
The petitioners said Section 14 of the Waqf Act which gives the board power to declare property belonging to any trust or society as its own was unconstitutional and went against the principles of natural justice and fair play.