New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to grant more time for the mandatory registration of all waqf properties — including “waqf by user” — on the UMEED digital portal. A Bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih directed petitioners to approach the respective waqf tribunals if they seek relief before the deadline expires.
Citing the proviso to Section 3B, the Bench said applicants already have a remedy before tribunals and allowed them to pursue that option within the remaining period of the six-month window.
The plea for extension was moved by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi and several others, who argued that the deadline for completing registrations was too close.
The court referred to its earlier interim order from September 15, in which it stayed certain provisions of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 — including the clause requiring a person to have practised Islam for five years before creating waqf — but declined to halt the entire law. The Bench reiterated that the Centre’s deletion of the “waqf by user” clause was prima facie not arbitrary and rejected apprehensions that government agencies would take over waqf land.
“Waqf by user” denotes properties recognised as religious or charitable endowments based on prolonged uninterrupted use for such purposes, even without a formal written declaration.
The Centre launched the UMEED (Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development) portal on June 6 to build a geo-tagged digital inventory of waqf assets nationwide. Under the mandate, details of all registered waqf properties must be uploaded within six months, a deadline that the petitioners sought to extend.
