On Thursday, a petitioner in the case against Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board complained that the concerned deputy commissioners in the case were deliberately delaying in responding to the court notices. Petitioner Ankur Sharma in the year 2018 had challenged J&K Waqf Board’s notification claiming authority over 500 kanals of land.
According to the reports, the J&K Waqf Board had issued a notification in the year 1985 in which over 500 Kanals of land were notified as Waqf property in Poonch district. Sharma challenged the notification in 2018 and accused revenue officers of deliberately delaying the case on September 22.
“The said notification included the offices of the deputy commissioner and the district information officer as well. In 2012, the deputy commissioner Poonch wrote a letter to the government stating that all lands notified by the Waqf board in 1985 in Poonch town are recorded as state land and not as Waqf land in the revenue records. Subsequently, in 2018 the Waqf board started issuing notices to people occupying these lands stating therein that the lands were being illegally occupied by them and eviction proceedings would be started against them”, Sharm was quoted.
Sharma filed a case before the J&K High Court on behalf of the people of Poonch, in which he challenged the Waqf board notice of 1985, claiming that it should be repealed. He went on to say that the lands given to the Waqf board were unilaterally allocated to favour a specific community, incurring tremendous losses to the general population.
According to the advocate, tax authorities are considering delaying responses to court notifications in order to satisfy a certain population, further attempting to disrupt the judicial process.
