Maharashtra Waqf board replaces AG at 11th hour, draws SC ire | India News

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday admonished Maharashtra Board of Waqfs for unceremoniously replacing attorney general K K Venugopal and lawyers assisting him at the eleventh hour in a bunch of petitions raising an important question — whether a charitable trust created by a Muslim automatically becomes a waqf property to come under the purview of the board?
A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli reprimanded Waqf board’s new advocate on record Shashibhushan P Adgaonkar and said “This is not the way to deal with the AG”. The CJI said, “I have never seen anyone treating or behaving in this manner with the AG.” Venugopal said he too had never faced such an unpleasant behaviour.
Adgaonkar’s letter, which triggered the storm in the courtroom, stated that since a letter had been circulated on behalf of the AG seeking adjournment of hearing in the case titled ‘Maharashtra Board of Waqfs vs Shaikh Yusuf bhai Chawla’, the board decided to make alternative arrangements to proceed with the case without seeking any adjournment.
In the process of making alternative arrangements, the board also replaced the advocate on record in SC for the case, its special counsel Javed Shaikh and another senior counsel Gopal Shankaranarayanan, who is related to Venugopal and learnt the court craft in his chamber before earning a name of his own.
A chastised Adgaonkar repeatedly apologised for the lapse and the bench said it would go ahead with the more than a decade old case on August 10 taking AG on board. The Bombay HC in 2011 had set aside a Maharashtra government circular constituting the Waqf board to administer all Muslim religious trusts under state Waqf Act and ordered that till its reconstitution, the trusts would be governed under the Bombay Public Trust Act. The SC had stayed the HC order but barred alienation of waqf properties.