
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has held that the Sunni Central Waqf Board cannot, in exercise of its general powers, direct a district magistrate to enter, delete or alter a person’s name in revenue records relating to a Waqf property. A division bench of Justices Alok Mathur and Amitabh Kumar Rai dismissed a petition by Shams Tabrez, ruling that mutation must follow the procedure under the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code.

The petitioner had sought to enforce the board’s January 13, 2025 order removing Qasim Nadeem from Waqf No. 1339 in Pratapgarh and appointing him secretary of the managing committee. The state government argued that mutation is governed by Section 34 of the Revenue Code. The court held that general powers under Section 28 of the Waqf Act cannot bypass a specific procedure. The district magistrate is not legally bound to act on a board direction, the court said. The petitioner may approach the tehsildar under Section 34 for mutation.
Both The Times of India and The Print carried the PTI-sourced verdict in near-identical neutral reportage, without added commentary or slant. The coverage uniformly leads with the core holding: the Waqf board's general powers do not override the specific procedure under the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code for revenue record changes. Neither source omits the petitioner's argument under Section 28 of the Waqf Act nor the state government's counter under Section 34 of the Revenue Code. The court's liberty for the petitioner to approach the tehsildar is also reported identically. The uniform straight reporting leaves no framing gap: the ruling itself is the story, and the next step is the petitioner's option to move the competent authority under Section 34.
Coverage: 2 sources, 2 neutral
Sources (2): timesofindia.indiatimes.com (neutral report), theprint.in (neutral report)
This brief was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above, so one read covers every framing they carry. Methodology and corrections.