Karnataka HC stays govt order for taking over Bengaluru Idgah Maidan from Waqf board

Justice Hemant Chandangouda orders the status quo on the 2.5-acre property, essentially a playground but used for prayers on special occasions by Muslims.

The Waqf board claims ownership of the property at survey number 40 in the Chamarajpet area citing a June 7, 1965, notification of the Mysore State Board of Waqf, which the government says is not binding on it. (PTI/File)

A Karnataka government order for taking over south Bengaluru’s 2.5-acre Idgah Maidan from the Waqf board saying it was the revenue department’s property was stayed by the high court on Thursday.

Justice Hemant Chandangouda stayed the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s August 6 order after the Waqf board challenged it as “arbitrary and unlawful”. The board argued that the BBMP joint commissioner’s order to name the state government as the land’s owner in records had “cast a shadow” on the property it had held for over 50 years.

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“The property shall be utilised only for the purpose of a playground and the Muslim community is permitted to use it for prayers [on the occasion of] Ramzan and Bakrid, not for offering prayers on any other day,” the single bench’s interim order said.

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The board claims ownership of the property at survey number 40 in the Chamarajpet area citing a June 7, 1965, notification of the Mysore State Board of Waqf, which the government says is not binding on it. The government also argues that the board enjoyed only congregational rights over the property since property ownership was not assigned to it. The BBMP referred to the Land Revenue Code of the erstwhile Mysore state to argue that when no ownership is established over a property, it would belong to the state.

Essentially a playground but used for prayers on special occasions by Muslims, the Idgah Maidan has been at the centre of a controversy fuelled by right-wing groups affiliated to the ruling BJP in recent days. Hindutva groups have threatened to forcibly take over the ground to hoist a national flag there as well as to celebrate the Ganesh festival on August 31.

The tricolour was hoisted at the ground on August 15, for the first time on an Independence Day, by revenue department officials.

Two weeks ago, police registered a suo motu complaint against an activist of a group called Vishwa Sanatan Parishat for threatening to demolish a prayer wall at the Idgah Maidan. The ground has a history of communal tension; a row over its ownership triggered violence in 1983.

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