Madras High Court rejects mosque’s claim over 1,100 acres as waqf property

The Madras High Court has rejected a claim made by a mosque over 1,100 acres of land in Tiruneveli district as waqf property and ruled that it will be entitled to just 2.34 acres based on the manyam (grant) given in 1712 by the then ruler of Madurai Samasthanam through a copper plate inscription.

Justice M. Dhandapani held so while partly allowing a civil revision petition filed by the Tamil Nadu government in 2018, challenging a decree passed by the Waqf Tribunal (Tiruneveli Principal Sub Court) in favour of the Muthawalli of Kanmiya Pallivasal (mosque) at Kandiyaperi on August 18, 2016.

The judge took the decision after hearing elaborate arguments advanced by senior counsel V. Raghavachari for Tamil Nadu Waqf Board and amicus curiae Chevanan Mohan on the revision petition filed by the State government, which contended that the mosque was not entitled to any piece of land.

Additional Advocate General Veera Kathiravan had argued that all the survey numbers that had been listed out by the mosque in its 2011 civil suit filed before the Waqf Tribunal were those that had been notified in 1966 under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Inam (Abolition & Conversion into Ryotwari) Act of 1963.

The government had declared the properties to be ryotwari lands, thereby excluding the right of the Waqf, and several parcels of those lands were given to the landless poor, the AAG said. It was also brought to the notice of the court that 362 persons were using the lands for agriculture on the basis of the assignment pattas.

The judge refused to accept the government’s contentions and stated that once a property had been declared waqf, it would remain so. He said the grant given to the mosque in 1712 could not be doubted since the Telugu inscription on the copper plate had been transcribed in 1925 itself.

The inscription read that it was a “Sarva Manyam for Masjid Dharmam” and that “it will carry on from son to grandson so long as the sun and moon last.” The tax-free grant given by the erstwhile ruler of Madurai Samasthanam had also been recorded in the Inam Fair Register of the years 1865 and 1866.

Further, the entitlement of the mosque over the grant had been affirmed by the Tinnevelly (erstwhile name of Tirunelveli) Subordinate Court on March 8, 1955, itself, and that decree had attained finality since it was not taken on appeal by the State despite being a party to the suit before the Subordinate Court, the judge said.

However, when it came to the extent of land to which the mosque would be entitled to, the judge pointed out that the copper plate inscription talks only about 75 kottahs of land having been granted and that a Google search would show that each kottah/katah would be equivalent to only 0.03124 acre.

Therefore, the mosque would be entitled to only 2.34 acres in total and nothing more, Justice Dhandapani held, and directed the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board to identify that piece of land on the basis of the description and boundaries mentioned in the copper plate inscription.

The Survey and Boundaries Act came into existence only in 1923 and until then, the practice of assigning survey numbers to the lands was not in vogue. In such circumstances, the mosque had failed to explain how it had claimed right over a host of survey numbers relating to a vast extent of 1,100 acres, the judge said.