The Uttar Pradesh government led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has told the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that 78 percent of the properties in the state claimed by the Waqf Board belong to the government. Waqf Board has no legal ownership rights on these. Monica Garg, Additional Chief Secretary of the State Minority Welfare Commission, presented her views on behalf of the UP government.
In fact, the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill held its last meeting of the regional tour in Lucknow on Tuesday (January 21, 2025). This meeting was held under the chairmanship of JPC chief and BJP MP Jagdambika Pal. In the meeting Shia and Sunni Waqf Board and Minority Commission All parties affected by it participated, including members of the
according to the report, UP government Monica Garg, additional chief secretary of the Minority Welfare Commission of India, told the JPC that the Waqf Board claims it has 14,000 hectares of land in the state. Of these, as per official records, 11,7000 hectares of land is government land. Garg said that the Sachar Committee report had also said that the 60 properties on which the Waqf Board is claiming are government properties.
The Revenue Department of the Uttar Pradesh government told the Joint Parliamentary Committee that a large part of the lands on which the Waqf Board is claiming are registered under Class 5 and Class 6 in the revenue records. Categories 5 and 6 include government properties and Gram Sabha properties. Actually, the Waqf Board is laying claim on more than 1.3 lakh properties in Uttar Pradesh.
These properties include many government properties including ASI (protected by Archaeological Survey of India) monuments, government hospital of Balrampur, Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) lands. The properties of the LDA and Housing Development Department that the Waqf Board is claiming were officially allotted to the respective departments of the respective municipalities.
The UP government told the JPC that there are guidelines and rules for marking Waqf properties in the state. When the Waqf Board claims any land, that land is matched with the records of 1952. If the land in Milan is found to be owned by the Waqf Board, then it can request the government to remove encroachment on that land.
The Uttar Pradesh government also told the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that the famous monuments of Lucknow Bada ImambaraChhota Imambara and Begum’s Tomb in Ayodhya are government properties, but the Waqf Board is wrongly claiming ownership of these protected monuments. There are many other famous properties among the properties over which the Waqf Board has asserted its rights.
MP Jagdambika Pal said that the JPC will present its report on January 31 in the next Parliament session. He said, “JPC has been meeting continuously across the country for the last 6 months. I am confident that we will all present our report unanimously. Last time we had to present it in the winter session. We are going to present this report in the budget session.”
Let us tell you that the budget session of Parliament will start from 31 January 2025 and will continue till 4 April 2025. The Union Budget will be presented in this session on 1 February 2025. At the same time, the Modi government is preparing to curb issues like mismanagement, corruption and encroachment of the Waqf Act, enacted in 1995 to regulate the Waqf properties.
