Karnataka High Court Sends Jarakabande Kaval Graveyard Title Dispute to Waqf Tribunal

The Karnataka High Court on November 12, 2026 dismissed the writ challenge brought by R Bhagyamma and K C Shashikala over 1.12 acres at Jarakabande Kaval. Justice Suraj Govindaraj refused to interfere with the 2010 corrigendum notification through which the Karnataka State Board of Waqf had treated the holding as Waqf property. The order said questions concerning the identity, location and Waqf character of the alleged graveyard could be resolved only through oral evidence and a statutory trial.

Bhagyamma and Shashikala traced private ownership to a purchase transaction in 1981, with succession claimed after the death of the owner in 2000. They asked the writ court to undo the effect of the corrigendum to the extent it included the parcel within notified Waqf holdings. The notifying authority stood by the notification on the footing that the land represented a burial ground answering to Waqf character.

Jarakabande burial ground needs trial

The order said the controversy turned on the identity of the burial ground cited in the notification and whether that description matched the property in the hands of the claimants. It also turned on the precise location of the yard on the ground and whether use as a place of burial had impressed the land with a character that the statute would recognise. Neither set of questions could be answered on affidavits alone, the bench said, because rival versions on possession, description and dedication required witnesses to be examined and documents to be proved in a trial.

Under Sections 6, 7, 83 and 85 of the Waqf Act, such disputes over status, notification and title fall to the specialised forum to the exclusion of parallel proceedings. The bench left questions of title and validity of the corrigendum undecided while keeping open the right to file proceedings before the Waqf Tribunal for full adjudication. Until such a claim is filed and decided, the notification continues to operate against the parcel and the petitioners remain free to establish private title only through evidence led before that forum.