'Everyone wants name in newspapers': Supreme Court says no to fresh pleas against Waqf law

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to examine a couple of fresh pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, saying everybody wants name in newspapers.

A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih said it would decide the pending matter scheduled to come up on May 20.

The apex court would then hear the point of interim relief in the case.

As soon as one of the pleas came up for hearing on Friday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, objected and said there can't be an "endless" filing of pleas challenging the Act.

The counsel appearing for the petitioner said he had filed the petition on April 8 and removed the defects pointed out by the apex court registry on April 15 but his plea was not listed for hearing.

"Everybody wants his name to be in the newspapers," the CJI observed.

When the lawyer urged the bench his plea should be tagged with the pending petitions, the bench said, "We will decide that matter." The bench then dismissed it.

When another similar plea came up for hearing, the bench said, "Dismissed".

When the counsel for the petitioner urged that he be allowed to intervene in the pending pleas, the CJI said, "We already have too many intervenors." On April 17, the apex court decided to hear only five of the total number of pleas before it.

The pleas challenging the Act came up for hearing before a bench comprising the CJI and Justice Masih on May 15.

The bench said it would hear arguments on May 20 for passing interim directions on three issues including the power to denotify properties declared as waqf by courts, waqf-by-user or waqf by deed.

The second issue raised by the petitioners relates to the composition of state waqf boards and the Central Waqf Council, where they contend only Muslims should operate except ex-officio members.

The third issue relates to a provision that says a waqf property will not be treated as a waqf when the collector conducts an inquiry to ascertain if the property is government land.

On April 17, the Centre assured the top court that it would neither denotify waqf properties, including "waqf by user", nor make any appointments to the central waqf council and boards till May 5.

Mehta on May 15 told the apex court that in any case, there was a subsisting assurance of the Centre that no waqf properties, including those established by waqf by user, would be denotified.

The Centre had opposed the apex court's proposal to pass an interim order against the denotification of waqf properties, including "waqf by user" aside from staying a provision allowing the inclusion of non-Muslims in the central waqf councils and boards.

On April 25, the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs filed a preliminary 1,332-page affidavit defending the amended Waqf Act of 2025 and opposed any "blanket stay" by the court on a "law having presumption of constitutionality passed by Parliament".