MP Asaduddin Owaisi Moves Supreme Court Seeking Extension Of Time For Registration Of Waqfs

Member of Lok Sabha, Asaduddin Owaisi, has filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking clarification in the decision on the challenge to the Waqf (Amendment) Act 2025. Owaisi has sought an extension of time for the registration of waqfs on the Government Portal. 

The matter was mentioned by Advocate Nizam Pasha before the bench of CJI BR Gavai and Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and K Vinod Chandran. 

He said, "6 months time was given in the Act, 5 months went by during the passing of judgment, we now only have 1 month." 

To underline the urgency of the situation, Pasha made an analogy from the Urdu couplet written by Seemab Akbarabadi  - " Umr daraz maang kar laye the 4 din, 2 aarzoo mein kat gaye 2 intezaar mein" 

(Those who wished for an extra 4 more days to live spent 2 days praying for it and 2 days waiting for the wish to be granted) 

SG Tushar Mehta was appearing for the Union. 

The CJI agreed to list the matter. He clarified, "Let it be listed, listing does not mean granting" 

Notably, the Court on September 14 stayed certain provisions of the Waqf (Amendment) Act 2025, while observing that several other provisions did not require any interference at the interim stage. In doing so, the Court did not interfere with the mandate for registration. 

Why Is The Extention Sought? 

The plea states that as per S. 3B of the Amended Act, every waqf registered prior to the Amendment Act is required to file the details of the waqf and the property dedicated to the waqf on the portal and database within six months from the date of enforcement of the amendments. The 2025 amendments took effect from April 8, 2025.

A six-month timeline is also prescribed under Section 36(1) read with Section 36(10) of the Waqf Act. The newly inserted Section 36(10) stipulates that no suit, appeal, or other legal proceeding to enforce rights on behalf of an unregistered waqf shall be instituted or commenced, nor shall any such proceeding be heard, tried, or adjudicated by any Court.

It further highlights that the mandated period of 6 months will lapse on October 8, 2025. Since the challenge to the impugned provisions of the Act was heard by the Court from May 20-22 and the judgment was pronounced only on September 15, "nearly five months of the prescribed six-month period had already elapsed". 

The applicant also stressed that if the time is not extended for registration, then several old waqfs would be facing irreparable loss. 

"It is clear, therefore, that the upshot of the operation of Section 3B read with Section 36(10) and Section 36(1) read with Section 36(10) is that all waqfs not registered in accordance with the Waqf Act stand exposed to dispossession and encroachment, with the attendant risk of third-party rights being unlawfully created over properties that are otherwise irrevocably dedicated in perpetuity."

The applicant thus seeks the following relief : 

"DIRECT that, notwithstanding the judgment pronounced on September 15, 2025, the period of six months prescribed under Sections 3B(1) and 36(10) of the Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development Act, 1995 (formerly known as the Waqf Act, 1995), as amended by the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, be extended by such further period as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper" 

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