Munambam Land Dispute | Waqf Board Didn't Come Forward, Litigants Opposing Inquiry With 'Ulterior Purpose': Kerala High Court

The Kerala High Court on Friday (October 10) observed that the litigants who had approached the court challenging appointment of inquiry commission by the state in the Munambam land dispute were only masquerading for certain other interested parties having "ulterior purposes".

The court made the observation while allowing two appeals filed by the State Government challenging a March 17 order cancelling the appointment of an Inquiry Commission set up by the State to resolve the land dispute between residents of Munambam and the Waqf Board.

The residents of Munambam have been protesting as they could not pay land tax, get mutation of properties from Kuzhupilly Village Office over claims that the properties have been registered as Waqf lands.

They claimed that their predecessors have brought the property from respondent-5, Farook College. The issue pertains to whether Siddhique Sait, who gifted the property to Farook College in 1950, intended it to be a Waqf property or not.

It is the case of Kerala Waqf Samrakshana Vedhi that rights over the land have been crystallized through multiple rounds of litigation. The State government by its November 27, 2024 notification had appointed the Inquiry Commission opining that the same was necessary "to find a permanent solution" with respect to the dispute. This was set aside by the single judge, against which the State moved the division bench in appeal.

On the issue of locus of petitioner— Kerala Waqf Samrakshana Vedhi as well as the parties in the connected writ petition to maintain its pleas, a division bench Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice Syam Kumar VM said that the petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution, projecting the writ petitioners as 'person aggrieved' however, they failed to show how they were affected by appointment of the commission.

It said:

"The learned Single Judge held that the writ petitioners would fall within the periphery of 'person aggrieved', making the writ petition itself maintainable before the Single Bench. We fail to fall in line with the said view for the reason that the writ petitioners have failed to sufficiently plead and demonstrate how they are directly affected by the issuance of the IC (inquiry commission) and the decision of the State Government of inquiring into the plight of bonafide occupants and third-party purchasers of various properties in the subject property. Why the writ petitioners preferred to file the writ petition as a 'person aggrieved' and not as a PIL is a lurking question not having been answered till the final hearing before this Court". 

The high court said that it would have been a different matter if any person acting as Mutawalli of the subject property had approached for enforcement of Waqf Act, but that was not the case here.

It said that the writ petitioners labelled themselves as public-spirited citizens having "inherent interest in preservation of waqf character of the subject property" but, there was no explanation why the writ petitioners preferred to "sleep till 2019" when third-party rights were being created in the subject property.

It also said that no explanation was given by the petitioners, as to why from 1950 till 2019 the petitioners or any other person similarly situated did not approach the Court for necessary directions for registration of the property as a waqf property.

"The filing of the writ petition by the writ petitioner raises more questions than it can answer, fundamentally because they are projecting themselves as 'person aggrieved'. The expression 'person aggrieved' has fallen for consideration on very many occasions in the context of maintainability of writ petition at the instance of third parties/outsiders to those who have direct and immediate relation with the cause of action. This is more so when the R5 Farooq Management, in whose favour the endowment deed of 1950 was executed, has throughout maintained that the endowment deed is not a 'waqf deed' but a 'gift deed' simpliciter and has opposed vehemently the writ petition filed by the petitioners"

The court said that both the writ petitioners as well as Farooq Management (who are the transferees of the endowment deed) are at loggerheads over the property and at severe variance from each other.

"Holding the writ petitioners to be 'person aggrieved' would also be doing injustice to the actual entities who may be the 'person aggrieved' like the R5 Farooq Management or the third party bonafide occupants who are affected by the declaration of subject property as a waqf property. Even the KWB has not chosen to initiate the present litigation, as has been the case with many other properties where KWB comes forward to preserve waqf character of the property so declared and registered by it" it said.

The court further observed:

"Therefore, in the humble opinion of this Court clearly the original writ petitioners can be treated as masquerading the interests of certain other interested parties, who are undertaking the present proceedings as a proxy litigation for certain ulterior purposes."

The court said that the Kerala Waqf Board had not come forward contesting the legality and validity of the State action of constitution of the commission.

It also observed that it was a "strange situation where outsiders and busy bodies" like original writ petitioners are filing the petition claiming the subject property as a waqf property, whereas the actual transferee or the real beneficiary, viz., the R5 (respondent) Farooq Management has been at pains in persuading the Court to the contrary.

"There are reasons far more than what meets our eyes, which are perceivable during the course of hearing, that the OWP's are entities set up by some invisible third party to somehow wrest the entire property and land from the R5 Farooq Management in the name of having been declared as a waqf," it added. 

The court thus held that writ petitioners before the single judge clearly lack the locus standi to institute the writ petition as they are not a 'person aggrieved'.  

The appeals were allowed.

Case title: THE STATE OF KERALA v/s T.K.I. AHAMED SHERIEF and Others And related petition

Case No: WA NO. 603 OF 2025

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Ker) 638

Click Here To Read/Download Order