In this district of UP, 60 percent of the properties registered illegally in the name of Waqf are in danger, action will be taken!

After the Waqf Amendment Bill was passed by a majority in the Lok Sabha, various discussions have started gaining momentum regarding the Waqf Board. A total of 2,630 properties of the Waqf Board have been found in the district, out of which about 60 percent of the Waqf properties have been built by illegally occupying government (Gram Samaj and Nazul) lands. In the remaining 40 percent of properties, about five percent of properties are such for which no clear legal details have been found, due to which they have also been placed in the suspicious category.

These are the properties in these areas of the district.

On the order of the government, the District Minority Welfare Department has prepared a report after investigating the properties of the Waqf Board present in the district. According to the report, the highest number of 872 Waqf properties among the seven tehsils are in Lakhimpur Sadar tehsil, in which 870 Waqf properties are with the Sunni and two properties are with the Shia Waqf Board.

403 properties are with the Sunni Waqf Board in Dhaurahra tehsil. In Mohammadi tehsil, 403 properties are with Sunni Waqf Board and four properties are with Shia Waqf Board. In Mitauli tehsil, 186 properties are with Sunni Waqf Board and three properties are with Shia Waqf Board.

Illegal occupation of Gram Samaj and Nazul lands

In Nighasan tehsil, 204 properties belong to the Sunni Waqf Board. In Palia tehsil, 105 properties are with the Sunni Waqf Board. In Gola Gokarnath tehsil, 449 properties belong to the Sunni Waqf Board and one property belongs to the Shia Waqf Board. Thus, out of the total 2,630 Waqf properties of the Waqf Board, 2,620 properties belong to the Sunni Waqf Board and 10 properties belong to the Shia Waqf Board. During the departmental survey of all these properties, about 60 percent of Waqf properties were found on government lands, in which Gram Samaj and Nazul lands have been illegally occupied.

There is no clear information.

Departmental sources say that there are some lands which were allotted to the Waqf Board by the order of the then state government. Hence, now these properties have also been placed in the category of illegal occupation. Apart from this, there are about five percent properties about which clear legal details are not available. The land area of ​​many properties is not recorded in the papers.

Properties worth crores in each Waqf number There are a total of 2,630 Waqf properties in the district, which are known by different numbers. Such as Waqf number one, two, three, four etc., in which dozens of properties are registered at different places in one Waqf number. Hence, 2,630 Waqf numbers have thousands of properties registered at different places, whose value can be in crores-billions. The shops built right in front of the temple in the city's Mohalla Sankata Devi are the properties of Waqf number five of the Sunni Central Waqf Board. Similarly, many shops and houses on Kachehri Road are properties of Waqf No. 11.

The Waqf Board has claimed Lala Kashinath Seth's showroom as its property, the matter of which reached the court. Whereas the owner of the showroom had bought that land from a Hindu family through a deed, in which the main branch of State Bank of India was operating for a long time.

18 Waqf properties will be returned to their original form

Action has been initiated against illegal registration of government lands including Gram Sabha in the district as Waqf properties in the revenue records. In the first phase, 18 properties which were wrongly transferred from government lands to Waqf properties in the revenue records will be returned to their original form.

On the order of the government, the district administration has initiated action and issued instructions to the concerned Tehsildars to remove the word Waqf property from the revenue records and correct it as before, which were registered in the revenue records in the name of pasture, forest, bushes, etc.

These government lands were registered as Waqf properties by bypassing the rules during 1990 to 1995. The High Court Lucknow, while passing an order in a case on 11 December 2023, had declared the registration of government lands as Waqf properties in the revenue records as illegal and ordered to cancel such Waqf properties from the revenue records and re-register them in their original form.

ADM Sanjay Kumar Singh said that eight Waqf properties are to be canceled in Sadar Tehsil. Apart from this, six Waqf properties in Gola Tehsil and four Waqf properties in Nighasan Tehsil will be cancelled and re-registered as government land.

The Waqf Board has a total of 2,630 Waqf properties in all seven tehsils of the district, out of which 2,620 properties are with the Sunni and 10 properties with the Shia Waqf Board. A detailed report about these Waqf properties has been prepared and sent to the government by the DM. Now further action will be taken as per the instructions of the government. - Rohit Singh, District Minority Welfare Officer.