HYDERABAD: Justice Laxminarayana Alishetty of the Telangana High Court has quashed a gazette notification issued by the Waqf Board in 2006, holding that it was issued by invoking provisions of a repealed statute and was therefore without legal authority.
The court was dealing with two writ petitions filed by G Raghavendra Reddy and several other residents of Jogulamba Gadwal district challenging the inclusion of their properties in a list of Waqf properties published in 2006.
According to the petitioners, the impugned order published a list of properties in Gadwal as Waqf properties, which included agricultural lands, plots, and house sites situated in Survey Nos. 777, 734, and 735.
The petitioners claimed ownership over the lands in question, stating that they had purchased the properties from their predecessors-in-title.
It was contended that lands admeasuring over 20 acres in Gadwal were declared as Waqf land by way of a gazette notification issued in July 2006, purportedly in exercise of powers under the Waqf Act, 1954.
Senior Advocate L Ravichander, along with counsel on record S Goutham, argued that the 2006 notification overlooked a crucial legal development — the enactment of the Waqf Act, 1995, which had repealed the 1954 Act. Once the 1954 Act stood repealed, the authorities could not invoke powers under the repealed statute.
Relying on a division bench judgment on the issue, Justice Alishetty observed that a notification issued under a repealed statute is a nullity in the eye of law.
The court held that the powers under the repealed 1954 Act could not have been exercised in 2006, when the 1995 Act was already in force.
Accordingly, the court quashed the impugned gazette notification.