By Sushil Kutty
The Supreme Court of India has deferred pleas against Waqf (Amendment) Act till May 20. Chief Justice of India BR Gavai did not waste time arguing. He said the top court will not permit anybody to challenge the 1995 Waqf Act, “Lets argue the petitions challenging the 2025 amendments,” he said in a massive jolt to the Hindu quarter, which was in high spirits after the resounding victory over Muslim Pakistan in ‘Operation Sindoor’.
It did not take long for CJI Gavai, to draw the ire of Hindus knocking on the doors of the apex court. CJI Gavai summarily disallowed Hindu petitions challenging the 1995 Waqf Act. This, even as a Hindutva wave is sweeping India in the aftermath of the “4-Day War” and ‘Operation Sindoor’ following the Pahalgam Hindu massacre, when 26 Hindu men were shot dead in front of their disbelieving wives after a “circumcision test” and an equally egregious “kalma reciting test”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi swore “unimaginable punishment” to the “terrorists and their backers”, promising that the terrorists would be pursued to the end of the earth! The Indian Air Force bombed Pakistani airbases with missiles and drones, poking holes on tarmacs and on the rooftops of aircraft hangars.
It was a massacre of airfields. The total decimation of the Pakistan Air Force. Pakistan ran into the arms of the United States and an untenable ceasefire now reigns, the hostilities brought to a temporary halt as life limps back to a modicum of normalcy.
Which could be one reason why interest in issues like the Waqf has revived. The hugely polarizing petitions challenging the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025, are part of the revival and the ‘Hindu’ thought the world was his oyster after ‘Operation Sindoor’. The top court thought otherwise. It didn’t waver as it deferred hearing petitions challenging the Waqf Amendment Act 2025 to May 20 and while giving some food for thought to Hindu petitioners, leaving them wondering if the all the euphoria of the past several days was real or a dream?
The apex court will not win a popularity contest in the Hindu quarter. “Don’t bring in the 1995 Act when challenging the 2025 Waqf Amendment Act,” the Supreme Court said and the observation had the potential to set the cat among the pigeons. A sense of betrayal lead to crying foul and indiscriminate charges of discrimination.
“How can he do this, and that in his very his first hearing as CJI,” one Hindu petitioner exclaimed, saying it reminded him of the plight of Kashmiri Pandits whose case was summarily rejected by the Supreme Court with the observation that too much time had lapsed since their exodus from the Kashmir Valley.
Ditto with the Hindu petitioners in the Waqf case. A similar feeling of betrayal “by their own”. CJI Gavai asking them why they waited 30 years to challenge the 1995 Waqf Act? Senior Supreme Court advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain objected in vain.
The Muslim side prayer is for an interim stay of the provisions of the 2025 Act and the top court ensured the Hindu petitioners will have no role to play except sit mute spectators and watch the invincible Kapil Sibal, the lead lawyer of the Muslim side, argue for a stay of the provisions of Waqf Amendment Act 2025.
The petitions were being heard by a three-judge bench of the then Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna, who was in no hurry to beat his retirement deadline and the case went to successor BR Gavai, who appears to be eager to ensure closure to an extremely thorny issue. CJI Gavai’s two-judge bench includes Justice AG Masih, and it’s the lot of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, to defend the Waqf Amendment Act 2025 against a formidable line-up of senior advocates on the Muslim side.
The government appears non-committal to Hindu aspirations. It filed a counter-affidavit taking up certain aspects of the law that had been flagged by the top court. The Modi government is particularly earnest in seeing the back of the “waqf by user” concept, which is central to the Muslim side, too.
The insistence to retain only registered waqfs and the inclusion of non-Muslims in state Waqf Boards and the Central Waqf Council are other points of contention. Point to note is, it doesn’t matter how many victories “Hindus” notch up against “Islamic Pakistan”, at home the “minority” community of Indian Muslims will always fare better!
Scores of petitions have been filed in the top court on the 2025 Waqf amendments, but the Supreme Court has picked up only five as “lead matters” and the five lead petitions have all been filed by Muslims!
The Hindu-Muslim divide is never more apparent. One Hindu advocate told the court that it should not give a “polarised impression” and that “others” should be allowed to file writ petitions as well. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta countered with “Nobody is giving any polarised impression.” Whose side is the Modi government on?
The Modi government doesn’t want to give a “polarised impression”. Despite and in spite of the Hindu undertones to ‘Operation Sindoor’, there are “secular considerations” that Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot ignore in the heat of the “Hindu moment”.
And the Supreme Court appears to be helping the Modi government, which too doesn’t want to have anything to do with the 1995 Waqf Act, allegedly the worst example of “fair and square” in all of Kingdom Come! CJI Gavai’s point-blank refusal to permit any challenge to the 1995 Act gladdened the hearts of those challenging the 2025 amendments, as simple as that.
Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain did the rounds of television studios post the disappointing run-ins in the Supreme Court. “It was challenged earlier, they asked us to go to the High Court. We filed around 140 petitions, which are pending in different high courts, and now we have filed the present writ petition, which is a fresh matter challenging various provisions,” Jain said.
CJI Gavai told Jain, “How can we permit you to raise the challenge to the provisions of the 1995 Act in the 2025 Act? We will not consider any request or stay of the provisions of the 1995 Act. We are making it clear. Just because someone is trying to make a challenge to the 2025 Act, somebody just wants to jump in and challenge the 1995 Act. That will not be permissible.”
With that the euphoria of ‘Operation Sindoor’ went out the door. The bench of CJI Gavai and Justice Masih sounds determined to hang the 2025 Waqf amendments out to dry.
To reiterate, the feeling one got that with the Pahalgam Hindu massacre and ‘Operation Sindoor’, India was showing all the signs of a resurgent Hindu Rashtra has been thwarted “at home”, in the “sovereign, socialist, democratic republic” outlined in the preamble of the Constitution, as highlighted again and again by the All India Majilis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen of Asaduddin Owaisi, “Yeh Desh Samvidhan Se Chalega.” It is a sobering thought! (IPA Service)
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