The Supreme Court declined to intervene in requests seeking an extension of the deadline for uploading details of Waqf properties on the government’s UMEED digital portal.
A Bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Augustine George Masih held that Section 3B of the Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development Act expressly empowers Waqf Tribunals to grant extensions wherever circumstances warrant. In view of this statutory mechanism, the Court disposed of the applications, granting liberty to the applicants to approach the concerned Tribunals before expiry of the prescribed six-month period.
At the hearing, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal submitted that although the amendment came into force on April 8, the UMEED portal became functional only on June 6, and the corresponding Rules were notified as late as July 3. He argued that many Waqfs, some more than a century old, do not possess complete historical documentation, and the portal does not accept entries without such records. Senior Advocate Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi added that multiple technical issues were preventing smooth registration, and urged the Court to allow additional time.
Opposing the request, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta contended that the law already provides a remedy, as the proviso to Section 3B authorises Tribunals to extend timelines on a case-by-case basis. He maintained that the last date would remain December 6, considering the portal’s activation on June 6. Responding to concerns about the volume of applications, the Solicitor submitted that several Waqfs have successfully registered and that the statutory mandate has existed since the 1923 Act.
Senior Advocate M.R. Shamshad clarified that the dispute does not relate to registration per se, but to digitisation of existing entries, which, he argued, had not been addressed in the Court’s earlier interim order. Other counsel pointed out that several States have yet to complete mandatory surveys under Section 4, and in their absence, strict enforcement of the registration requirement would be impractical.
Advocate Nizam Pasha submitted that the six-month deadline from the amendment’s commencement expired on October 10, and urged the Court to direct another extension given the Government’s past decision to relax the timeline once. The Bench, however, questioned whether it could reopen an issue that a coordinate Bench had previously refused to modify, prompting the applicants to assert that the earlier order covered only the question of registration, not digitisation.
The Court ultimately declined to grant blanket relief and observed, “In light of the proviso to Section 3B, and since the statute itself provides recourse before the Tribunal, all applications are disposed of with liberty to approach the Tribunal before the expiry of the six-month period prescribed under Section 3B(1).”
The proceedings stem from the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, which introduced compulsory online registration of all Waqf properties, including those classified as “Waqf by user”, on the UMEED portal. Several petitioners, including the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and MP Asaduddin Owaisi, have sought relaxation of the statutory timeline, arguing that the short compliance window and technical delays could jeopardise longstanding Waqfs.
Under Section 3B, all Waqfs registered prior to the amendment must upload their details within six months of the amendment’s enforcement on April 8, 2025. Section 36(10) further bars the institution or continuation of any suit on behalf of an unregistered Waqf, raising concerns that non-compliance could expose old Waqfs to dispossession or competing claims.
Owaisi’s plea emphasises that nearly the entire compliance period elapsed while the constitutional validity of the amendment was under challenge, warning that failure to grant an extension may cause irreversible harm to Waqfs lacking historical documentation.
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