Mumbai: The Maharashtra State Waqf Tribunal has extended the deadline for Muslim religious trusts in the state to register their institutions in the Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development (UMEED) Act 2025, also known as the Waqf Act, by six months.
Technical Glitches Left Thousands Unregistered
The tribunal passed the order on December 23 on an application by the Maharashtra State Board of Waqf which said that UMEED portal was full of glitches, and inoperational for nearly five months after its inauguration on June 4, leaving 25,000 of the 75,000 properties managed by 36,000 Waqf trusts in the state, unregistered till the December 5 deadline.
The Waqf Board, which filed the application against the government of India and the Union ministry of minority affairs, said the process of making, checking, and approving entries is time consuming, especially because the UMEED portal was prone to server failures. Despite appeals from trusts, the government did not extend the time for registrations, the application said. This has left thousands of trusts at the risk of prosecution for failure to comply with the deadline, the board said. Failure to fill entries is not intentional nor due to negligence but because of persistent technical failure of the UMEED portal, the application added. The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, came into effect on April 8. The UMEED portal closed for registrations on December 5.
Tribunal Recognizes Board’s Authority and Grounds
Adil Khan, district judge and chairman of the Maharashtra State Waqf Tribunal at Sambhajinagar, formerly Aurangabad, said that the purpose of the Maharashtra State Board of Waqf is to ensure proper administration of the trusts. Therefore, the tribunal said, the board has the locus standi to file the application seeking extension of the deadline. The tribunal said that the board has presented sufficient grounds in its plea for the extension. The tribunal said that the Supreme Court had directed the applicant to them and the tribunal has power under the UMEED Act to grant the extension.
In its order on Tuesday, the judge directed the respondents in the applicants, the Union government and the ministry of minority affairs to make the portal fully functional 24/7 without any technical problems. The tribunal also restrained the government from taking any adverse action against the mutawallis, the caretakers of the trust, for not meeting the earlier deadline.
Trusts welcomed the order. Shuaib Khatib, trustee of Mumbai's Jama Masjid, said that there was delay in registrations because of the call by community groups for boycott of the portal. “This, and the problems with the portal led to the delay. If the matter was sorted out at that time, these complications could have been avoided,” said Khatib who said that the portal should be improved. “This is the age of AI. If we upload documents about change of trustees, the changes should be reflected in the physical property cards without delay. Currently, the property cards of the trusts still carry the name of the old trustees,” Khatib added.
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