The Madras High Court has rejected a claim made by a mosque over 1,100 acres of land in Tiruneveli district as waqf property and ruled that it will be entitled to just 2.34 acres based on the manyam (grant) given in 1712 by the then ruler of Madurai Samasthanam through a copper plate inscription.
Justice M. Dhandapani held so while partly allowing a civil revision petition filed by the Tamil Nadu government in 2018, challenging a decree passed by the Waqf Tribunal (Tiruneveli Principal Sub Court) in favour of the Muthawalli of Kanmiya Pallivasal (mosque) at Kandiyaperi on August 18, 2016.
The judge took the decision after hearing elaborate arguments advanced by senior counsel V. Raghavachari for Tamil Nadu Waqf Board and amicus curiae Chevanan Mohan on the revision petition filed by the State government, which contended that the mosque was not entitled to any piece of land.
Additional Advocate General Veera Kathiravan had argued that all the survey numbers that had been listed out by the mosque in its 2011 civil suit filed before the Waqf Tribunal were those that had been notified in 1966 under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Inam (Abolition & Conversion into Ryotwari) Act of 1963.
The government had declared the properties to be ryotwari lands, thereby excluding the right of the Waqf, and several parcels of those lands were given to the landless poor, the AAG said. It was also brought to the notice of the court that 362 persons were using the lands for agriculture on the basis of the assignment pattas.
