Delhi HC rejects PIL against Waqf Board and mosques, says petition is not in public interest
The Delhi High Court on Monday (23 February) rejected a PIL challenging the Waqf Notification of 1980. In this petition, three mosques located in Jahangirpuri were described as illegal occupation of public land. This petition was filed by a non-governmental organization (NGO) ‘Save India’.
Delhi High Court found that this petition of ‘Save India’ is not in public interest, after which the High Court said that we are not willing to hear this petition and dismissed that petition with pending application. The court said that the notification issued about 46 years ago cannot be questioned on small things.
‘The petition is neither correct nor in public interest’
The court said that the petitioner, Save India Foundation, is unnecessarily reopening settled issues and this petition is neither proper nor in public interest. The court said that the organization had filed 37 PILs and 11 writ petitions between 2024 and 2026. Public Interest Litigation Cautioning against misuse of PIL, the Court stressed that the sanctity of PIL should not be diluted at any cost.
Chief Justice D.K. Upadhyay and Justice Tejas Karia found that this PIL filed by NGO Save India Foundation was not motivated by goodwill or public interest. The court ordered that we are not willing to consider this petition, hence it is dismissed with the pending applications.
What is the matter?
In fact, the petitioner had challenged the notification issued by Delhi Waqf Board on March 24, 1980. In the notification, orders were given to declare some properties as Sunni Waqf properties. These include Moti Masjid, Jama Masjid and another mosque located in Jahangirpuri. The petitioner claimed that the land on which these three properties are situated was purchased by the Delhi Government in 1977 by giving compensation to its owners. Therefore any construction on that land was an illegal encroachment on public land and could not be listed as Waqf property.
The petition claimed that this acquisition was done for the planned development of Delhi and the land was handed over to the Delhi Development Authority, which had included these plots in the formal layout plan of a planned colony named Jahangirpuri. The court said in its decision that the petitioner has repeatedly filed petitions calling them public interest litigations and has unnecessarily tried to dig up the past, hence no notification issued 46 years ago can be allowed to be challenged on flimsy grounds.
The court made strict remarks
Along with this, the Court emphasized that the sanctity of PIL should not be violated by any petitioner at any cost and even as per the Supreme Court, it is the duty of the courts to ensure that frivolous petitions or petitions not filed in good faith are stopped at the very beginning.
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