SC Dismisses Plea Seeking Enactment of Uniform Law for Trusts, Charitable Institutions and Religious Endowments Of All Communities

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition filed by BJP leader Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay which sought directions from the Court to the state to enact only Uniform Law for Trust-Trustees, Charities-Charitable Institutions and Religious Endowments-Institutions as enumerated in Item 10 and 28 of List-III, Seventh Schedule in consonance with Articles 14-15, and not separate law for Waqf and Waqf properties.

The Apex Court Bench comprising of Justice D. Y. Chandrachud and Justice Surya Kant heard the matter and Justice Chandrachud remarked that "It is a well settled principle that no court issues a writ of mandamus to the parliament to pass a law".

The Court refused to entertain the PIL and observed that the prayer of the petitioner is an interference with the power of the legislature.

The bench stated that, "If you are aggrieved by the provisions of the law then you can challenge it. We cannot entertain the challenge against a law in abstract."

The petitioner sought liberty to withdraw the petition so as to pursue remedy as available in law and the same was allowed by the Court.

The petitioner had challenged the constitutional validity of the various provisions of the Waqf Act 1995 on the ground that Parliament has no power to make special laws in favour of a religious community giving it special status and discriminating against similarly situated Hindu and other non-Islamic religious communities.

The Petitioner had contended that the basic right to file suit before a Civil Court has been taken away conferring those powers on Waqf Tribunal.