News Excerpt: 

The Madras High Court has declared unconstitutional, a 2010 amendment which brought waqf properties under the ambit of the Tamil Nadu Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act of 1976.

More about News: 

• The court held that the 2010 amendment was repugnant to the central Waqf Act of 1995, which is a central legislation.
• The court ruled that encroachers of waqf properties can be evicted only by waqf tribunals constituted pursuant to an amendment made to the Central legislation in 2013.
• The Bench refused to accept the State government’s contention that the State law as well as the Central law could co-exist with the Tamil Nadu Wakf Board CEO being given the option of ordering eviction, by invoking the State law, against rank outsiders who had occupied waqf properties or to approach the tribunal, under the Central law, if there was a complicated dispute over title.

Parliament Intervention for Uniformity

• The original provisions of the Waqf Act, 1995 were not stringent enough to deal with encroachment or illegal occupation of waqf properties. 
• Therefore, the Sachar Committee recommended that the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971 should be applied to waqf properties too, as these properties were also for the benefit of the public at large.
• The Parliament amended the Waqf Act in 2013 in order to ensure uniformity across the country in eviction of encroachments. 
• The 2013 amendment clearly stated that the encroachers of waqf properties could be evicted only as per procedures prescribed under the Central enactment.

Conclusion:

In the concluding remarks, the division bench of the Madras High Court said, The Parliamentary law intends to secure the protection of waqf properties which requires uniformity of law and consistency of its application all over the country. The Central Act is thus made as an exhaustive code on the subject. Therefore, the State enactment is repugnant to the Waqf Act of 1995 as amended in the year 2013.