Hyderabad: Laxity on part of Wakf Board leads to loss of prime lands

Hyderabad: The alleged delay in countering the claims of realtors in courts has cost several hundred acres of prime land to TS Wakf Board in past few years. In cases involving huge market value, the counsels representing either failed to go for an appeal or remained absent when the judgment was announced.

According to sources, the TS Wakf Board has failed to counter or appealed for stay in the case of property under the institution of Dargah Hazrath Meer Mahmood Sahed Pahadi at Maula Ali under Malkajgiri Mandal. As per the AP Gazette notification published in 1989, the land stretching under several Survey numbers with Dry (328 acr – 19 gunta), Wet (56 acr – 01 gunta) was under the Dargah.

High Court in its order in 2019 observed that the notification (Gazette) has no legal validity and cannot be a basis for refusing to receive the document presented by the petitioner treating the property, which was the subject matter of the said document, to be Wakf property.

However, Wakf Board sources pointed out that transfer of officials who took on land mafia in recent years has given chance to penetrate the officialdom and influencing the arguments in the courts. "Wakf Board has failed to challenge the claims of land sharks who had an entire team of lawyers and absence or poor handling by Wakf counsels provided free leeway to the other party. In this kind of case if they were sincere they could have easily got a stay order or gone for an appeal in higher court," the sources argue.

It is believed that now the real estate is booming in the approximately 400 acres of land at Malkajgiri, where each sq yard is worth Rs 50,000. Similar was the case of Guttala Begumpet, which was won in the Wakf Tribunal but was lost in High Court as no counsel representing Wakf attended in the final argument. The property is now worth Rs 10,000 crores. "Incidentally the Wakf Board counsels were receiving handsome packages, some of whom who were recently appointed are said to be close to those at helm of Wakf Board," sources alleged.

According to some estimates close to 1 lakh acres of Wakf land vanished since last two-and-a-half-decade. The report of the House Committee, 1995 in which Asaduddin Owaisi was also a member said there was 1,33,209 acres of Wakf land within Telangana. But after the formation of Telangana, the government was claiming that it was having 77,000 acres of land of which only 40,000 acres is recorded.