The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has ruled that the Sunni Central Waqf Board cannot direct a district magistrate to enter, delete or alter names in revenue records relating to Waqf properties, placing such mutations under the procedure prescribed by the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code.
A division bench of Justices Alok Mathur and Amitabh Kumar Rai made the observation while dismissing a petition filed by Shams Tabrez. The court held that changes to revenue records must be considered through the statutory process under Section 34 of the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code rather than through a direction issued under the Waqf Board’s general powers.
The dispute arose from Waqf No. 1339 in Pratapgarh. The petitioner claimed that the Sunni Central Waqf Board, Lucknow, had removed the name of Qasim Nadeem from the Waqf record on January 13, 2025, and appointed him secretary of the managing committee. He sought directions to the district magistrate to implement the board’s decision by making corresponding changes in the revenue records of the Waqf property.
The petitioner relied on Section 28 of the Waqf Act, arguing that it empowered the board to issue directions to the district magistrate. The Uttar Pradesh government opposed the plea, maintaining that mutation of land records was governed by the specific procedure under Section 34 of the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code.
The bench accepted the state’s position that a general power could not be used to bypass a procedure laid down by a special law. It distinguished between changes to the Waqf register and changes to revenue records, which serve different administrative purposes. Under Section 41 of the Waqf Act, the board could make changes in the Waqf register, the court noted. Mutation in revenue records, however, fell within the jurisdiction of the concerned tehsildar.
The court also noted that Section 34 of the Revenue Code required the tehsildar to consider claims and objections before passing an order on mutation. The provision did not give the district magistrate the power to decide such mutations, the bench said. This places the revenue authority, rather than the Waqf Board or the district magistrate, at the centre of the formal land-record process.
The ruling separates institutional control over Waqf administration from the legal process used to maintain land records. For property administration in Uttar Pradesh, that distinction is significant because revenue records are used to document changes in possession, management and recorded interests, while a Waqf register records the status of properties under the Waqf framework. The court’s order indicates that an entry in one record cannot automatically replace the procedure required for altering the other.
The bench did not close the petitioner’s route to seek mutation. It granted him liberty to approach the competent authority under Section 34 of the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code. Any change to the relevant revenue records will therefore have to be pursued before the authority prescribed under that provision.
