Tribunal Cancels Sale of Wakf Land to Hindujas

Tribunal Cancels Sale of Wakf Land to Hindujas A Staff Writer Hyderabad Wakf Board had unauthorisedly sold 1,122 acres land to Power Corp. in 2008 In a major breakthrough, 1,122 acres of waqf land sold to the Hinduja Power Corporation in an unauthorized manner has been ordered to be restored to a Waqf body by the Andhra Pradesh Wakf Tribunal. The land belonged to the Hazrat Syed Ali Ishaq Madani Auliya Dargah in Visakhapatnam district and had been sold by the Government to the Hinduja Power Corporation Limited in 2008. The sale had attracted criticism from the community and the media. Mr. Akbaruddin Owaisi, leader of the Majlis Ittihadul Muslimeen in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, had filed a case before the Andhra Pradesh Wakf Tribunal in 2009 praying for the cancellation of the sale. He had prayed that the sale was illegal as no wakf land could be sold and the land in question was a registered waqf asset under a gazette notification (no. 47/1961, gazette 37, part 11, 1965). The petitioner had contended that the land was sold at a price of Rs. 2.25 lakh an acre while the ruling land prices at that time were Rs. 10 lakh for an acre, as per the rates decided by the Land Registry Office. The land in question is located in the Deoda village of the Pedda Gunta Yada mandal of the Visakhapatnam district and measures 5,287 acres under the Wakf Act. The Government had sold away 1,122 acres and had directed the then Chief Executive Officer of the Wakf Board Mr. Shaikh Madar to himself register the sale transaction at Visakhapatnam. The Tribunal while cancelling the sale transactions, has directed the buyer to pay for the legal expenses of the case. Advocates who pleaded the case from Mr. Owaisi’s side were Syed Wajihuddin Hydari, Syed Nuruddin Hydari and Mr. K. Srinivas.