The Delhi High Court dismissed a PIL challenging a 1980 notification declaring three Jahangirpuri mosques as waqf properties, holding the petitioner had needlessly attempted to revisit historical matters. It said the plea lacked bona fides and public interest.
The Delhi High Court dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) that sought to invalidate a 1980 notification declaring three mosques in Jahangirpuri as waqf properties.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia rejected the petition filed by Save India Foundation, an organisation the Court has repeatedly reprimanded for filing multiple PILs against mosques and dargahs.
In a comprehensive order, the Court found that the petitioner had needlessly attempted to revisit historical matters and that the petition was neither bona fide nor in the public interest.
The Court observed,
“The motive behind filing the writ petition also does not appear to be bonafide. We are also of the opinion that any notification made about 46 years ago cannot be permitted to be challenged on flimsy grounds,”
The order further noted that Save India Foundation had filed 37 PILs between 2024 and 2026, along with 11 writ petitions, and warned against abusing the PIL mechanism, stating the necessity to protect the purity of the stream of public interest litigation in the country from being undermined by litigants.
The foundation had asked the High Court to strike down an April 10, 1980 notification issued by the Delhi Waqf Board under the Muslim Waqfs Act, 1954, which included several waqf properties in Delhi among them Jama Masjid Jahangir Puri, Moti Masjid and Masjid Jahangir Puri listed at serial numbers 26, 27 and 29.
The petitioner contended that the land beneath these mosques had been acquired by the government in 1977 under the Land Acquisition Act for Delhi’s planned development, with compensation paid to landowners, and therefore argued that the mosques amounted to illegal encroachments on public land and should not have been declared waqf properties.
The Waqf Board challenged the petition’s maintainability, saying the notification followed a proper inquiry by the Commissioner of Waqfs under Sections 4 and 5 of the 1954 Act.
It also pointed to Section 6 of the Act, which imposes a one-year limitation for challenging inclusion of properties in the wakf list before a civil court.
Agreeing with the Waqf Board, the High Court held that contesting the 1980 notification was “legally impermissible” after such an extended period, particularly where the statute bars civil suits beyond one year from publication.
The Court therefore dismissed the PIL.
Counsel for the petitioner included Advocates Umesh Chandra Sharma, Vikas Sharma, Yogesh Aggarwal, Neeraj Chauhan, Mohit Kumar, Khushbu Khatri, Lalit Goyal, Preeti Singh and Subhash Pal.
The Delhi Waqf Board was represented by Senior Advocate Sanjoy Ghose along with Advocates Farahat Jahan Rehmani, Firoz I Khan, I Ahmed, R Mandal, M Ali and Nazma.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi was represented by Advocates Manu Chaturvedi, Ahmed Jamal Siddiqui, KK Rai and Madhav Tripathi.
The Union of India appeared through Central Government Standing Counsel Sayed Abdul Haseeb and Advocate Varun Pratap Singh. Advocates Shobhana Takiar and Kuljeet Singh acted for the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).
Case Title: Save India Foundation v. Municipal Corporation of Delhi & Ors
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