Hyderabad: Telangana high court has set aside a 2023 order by the state wakf board, which appointed seven members to oversee the Ibadat Khana (house of worship) in Darulshifa.
Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka directed the wakf board to take over the Ibadat Khana and form a managing committee consisting of equal members from both Shia sects, Akhbari and Usuli, to resolve the ongoing legal disputes.
The case stemmed from a petition filed by Asma Fatima of the Shia Imamia Ithna Ashari Akhbari Society, challenging the wakf board’s 2023 decision to appoint new members to manage the institution. Ibadat Khana, a Shia religious institution, is used for prayers, mourning, and celebrations related to the death and birth anniversaries of Prophet Mohammed and the 12 imams. According to Mir Lukman Ali, counsel for the petitioner society, the property was originally donated in 1953 by two wakifs, with an eight-member committee appointed to manage it. It was also gazetted in 1989. The wakf deed had a clause that these 10 members can nominate their successors.
Over time, the committee members passed away without naming successors, and in 1994, the wakf board formed a 10-member mutawalli committee.
However, this committee did not have the right to name successors either. In 2007, the board appointed a single president, and in 2023, it appointed seven members as successors to original panel. The petitioner argued that the 2023 order concealed prior decisions, including the 1994 appointment.
Senior counsel P Venugopal, appearing for the petitioner, contended that the wakf board hid the fact that it earlier nominated 10 members to the committee. The judge concluded that the wakf board’s attempt to name new successors to the original 1953 committee was legally invalid, as no successor had been designated prior. The court’s ruling calls for a balanced, sectarian committee to resolve the matter.
