Yogi Adityanath Government has done well to dissolve the outfits. Punish the guilty
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's decision to dissolve the Shia and the Sunni Waqf Boards of Uttar Pradesh is a welcome step as these organisations had become a den of corruption where systematic loot was carried out in the name of Allah. Waqf is a charitable trust, constituted under Islamic laws. It has ownership of land, cash or similar assets given by affluent people for various benevolent purposes such as helping the poor, widows, divorced women and orphans. The Waqf donations are generally tax-free and the money is supposed to be utilised for only charitable causes. But in reality, these boards became a source of minting money by the unscrupulous. Officials grab land and give it to builders at low rates to construct markets, malls or industries. The managers who are supposed to run Waqf properties even treat heritage sites as their fiefdom. Cocking a snook at the law, they build offices and even houses. Corruption and mismanagement in both the Waqf boards of Uttar Pradesh were especially rampant during the previous Samajwadi Party Government. Several social activists and even Muslim clerics had raised questions about the appointment of questionable people to these boards. Riding roughshod, the then Muslim Welfare and Haj Minister Mohammad Azam Khan, a powerful Minister in the then Akhilesh Yadav Government, went ahead with dubious appointments. Muslims came out on the streets, demanding a probe into the management of the Waqf , but their demands were crushed under the jackboot of an authoritarian raj. With reports of corruption pouring in, the Central Waqf Council (CWC) constituted a fact-finding team which indicted Azam Khan in instances of corruption, mismanagement and misuse of office. The charges were grave. The committee said that Azam Khan had established a trust — the Maulana Jauhar Ali Education Trust — and diverted funds from Waqf properties to it. This trust runs a school in Rampur, named the Rampur Public School, where the fee is far higher than even in private schools. This school ought to not have charged. Another anomaly pointed out was about discrepancies in maintaining rent collection records on Waqf properties. The report said that the Sunni and Shia Waqf Boards used to charge monthly rent from shops at the market value of Rs 5000, while on paper it was shown as just five rupees. This seems a big racket as there are 1.3 lakh shops under the Sunni Waqf Board and 23,000 shops under the Shia Waqf Board.
The Central Waqf Council submitted its report to the Chief Minister and demanded dissolution of the two Waqf boards with immediate effect. It also recommended a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation and suggested that the accused officials should be barred from entering the office till the probe ended. Acting on this advice, Yogi Adityanath ordered an immediate dissolution of both the boards. Now, the Government should ensure that the probe is carried to a logical end. It should bring a white paper in the Uttar Pradesh State Assembly on the failure of both the Waqf boards and their deviation from the stated aims and objectives. The guilty should be punished.