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The Kerala Waqf Board has sought more time to upload information on around 25,000 properties in the State on the central portal, citing the delay caused by technical glitches.
The board has moved the Kerala High Court seeking six more months to share the information on the portal set up by the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs as it could not complete the job within the time frame fixed by the Kerala Waqf Tribunal.
Information on more than 40,000 properties was verified and uploaded by May 18, the deadline fixed by the tribunal. However, the tribunal didn’t entertain the request for a further extension of time, the board complained.
The sharing of information about the disputed Munambam Waqf property on the portal had stirred a political debate in the State, with Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan accusing the board, appointed by the previous LDF government, of attempting to derail his efforts to resolve the Munambam issue.
The board had clarified that the sharing of the information was a mandatory requirement under the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025.
Kerala has around 13,000 Waqf institutions and more than 60,000 Waqf properties in the State. The information on each Waqf needs to be subjected to “detailed statutory scrutiny, verification and approval of legally significant particulars relating to Waqf properties,” the board argued.
The Act mandates that every mutawalli of an existing Waqf shall upload the details of the Waqf and its properties on the Central portal, it clarified.
The board also pointed out that the uploading process of the remaining properties was almost complete; the final statutory verification and approval were pending. The portal often faced technical glitches, which delayed the sharing of information and the pace of verification and approval of the data.
Officers of the various Waqf Boards across the country had repeatedly encountered missing fields, faulty data validations, inability to save or edit entries, frequent crashes, and incomplete modules on the portal. This prevented the mutawallis of Waqfs and the staff of the Waqf board from entering the details on the portal on time., it said.
The Delhi High Court recently directed the Union government to operationalise the portal till November 14 for the verification and uploading of Waqf details. Hence, a further extension of six months was required for the completion of verification and approval of the remaining waqf properties on the portal, the board contended.
The Karnataka tribunal had allowed time till December for the State Waqf board for the purpose, the board argued.
The court is likely to consider the petition soon.
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