Supreme Court Allows Fresh Writ Petitions In Challenge To Waqf Amendment Act, 2025

New Delhi, November 3: The Supreme Court on Monday allowed applicants in the challenge to the Waqf Amendment Act 2025 to file fresh, independent writ petitions within two weeks. The direction came from a Bench of Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice Prasanna B. Varale in In Re: The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, Writ Petition (Civil) No. 276 of 2025 and connected matters.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Union of India. Dr. Mohan Gopal appeared for applicants who wanted to put separate arguments before the Court. The Bench said parties with distinct legal grounds should not stay confined as intervenors. They should get a chance to plead their own cases. All pleadings, affidavits and rejoinders must close by December 31, 2026. The batch will come up in the second week of January 2027.

The order alters the shape of the litigation. It decides nothing on the merits. The Court said nothing at this stage on whether any provision of the amended law violates the Constitution. It dealt only with how the large number of challenges will be organised, argued and readied for final hearing.

Earlier limit of five petitions eased

The present proceedings arise from the Waqf Amendment Act Supreme Court challenge in which the Court had earlier decided to proceed on five lead petitions. Courts use that device when dozens of petitions raise common questions. A small set is picked for full pleadings and arguments. The rest are tagged, turned into interlocutory applications or heard with the leads.

In this batch, several petitions filed under Article 32 were dealt with in that way and converted into interlocutory applications. The applicants then asked to return as independent petitioners. They told the Bench their challenges were not identical to the lead petitions. They wanted to raise additional and distinct points of law and fact. The Bench accepted that request on November 3, 2026.

An intervenor ordinarily supports or opposes a case already before the Court and argues within the main pleadings. An independent petitioner files a separate memorandum of parties, separate grounds and a separate prayer. That petitioner can place a separate record before the Court. The Bench said the difference mattered here because the batch involves several petitioners, different factual settings and separate lines of constitutional attack.

The permission is time-bound. Each applicant who wants to use it must file within two weeks of the order. The Court did not leave the window open for future applicants as a matter of course. Any new challenge after that will need separate leave and will have to satisfy the Court on maintainability, delay and duplication.

Waqf Amendment Act 2025 faces fresh challenge

The challenge invokes fundamental rights under Articles 14, 15, 19, 21, 25, 26, 29, 30 and 300A, alongside Section 3C. The order records those provisions as the heads under which distinct arguments are sought. It does not sum up those arguments. The merits will wait for final hearing.

Article 14 deals with equality before law and equal protection of laws. Article 15 bars discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. Article 19 protects freedoms of speech, association and movement, and Article 21 protects life and personal liberty. Articles 25 and 26 cover freedom of conscience, profession, practice and propagation of religion and the freedom to manage religious affairs. Articles 29 and 30 cover protection of interests of minorities and their right to establish and administer educational institutions. Article 300A says no person shall be deprived of property save by authority of law.

How those provisions apply to the amended waqf framework will be argued in full. The petitioners will have to point to the parts of the new law that, in their reading, attract each Article. The Union will answer with its justification, legislative history and reading of the provisions. Section 3C, flagged specifically in the proceedings, will need detailed submissions on the text of the Act, the rules made under it and how it is enforced.

The background includes earlier amendments, including the Waqf Amendment Act 2013, which changed definitions, registration, survey and management provisions in the parent law. Counsel are expected to compare the earlier scheme with the 2025 amendments on classification, religious freedom, property and administration. The Court gave no view on that comparison. It only ensured that parties who want to rely on legislative history will have a full petition on record.