The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the Kerala High Court’s order that a disputed 365-acre land in the Munambam area of Ernakulam district was not intended to be a waqf property, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Ujjal Bhuyan in its interim order said that the status quo be maintained till the matter is heard next on January 27.

The Supreme Court said that the matter required consideration and issued notice to the Kerala government and other respondents, seeking their response.

The bench said that it was not staying the High Court’s observation upholding the state government’s decision to appoint a one-member commission, Bar and Bench reported. “It is made clear that we have not stayed the inquiry,” it said.

During the hearing on Friday, the judges asked whether the High Court had been the correct forum to examine the nature of the land when related proceedings were pending before the Waqf Tribunal, Live Law reported.

Justice Misra observed that if the High Court thought the writ petition was not maintainable, “he could have stopped there”, adding that the bench had gone beyond its remit.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the Kerala Waqf Samrakshana Vedhi, Live Law reported.

The dispute dates back to 1950, when a man Mohammed Siddeeq Sait gifted more than 400 acres of land to Farook College. The college is located in Kozhikode, although it owns this land.

Over the years, parts of the land were sold and has been inhabited by about 600 Christian and Hindu families. The land, which is along the coast, had also decreased in size due to sea erosion.

In 2019, the Kerala Waqf Board declared the land as waqf and sought to cancel those sales.

A waqf is an endowment under Islamic law dedicated to a religious, educational or charitable cause. Each state has a waqf board led by a legal entity vested with the power to acquire, hold and transfer property.

After the Kerala Waqf Board’s declaration in 2019, the state government set up a judicial commission to give recommendations for a resolution.

The commission had recommended that the Kerala government acquire the disputed land if the occupants failed to get justice in the court.

However, a single bench of the court cancelled the commission in April.

This was challenged by the state government, after which a division bench on October 10, held that the land was not intended to be a waqf property and had been given as a gift to the management of Farook College.

The court said that the Kerala Waqf Board classifying the land as waqf in 2019 was “bad in law” and “palpably violative” of several Waqf Acts.

A history of the dispute

In the early 1900s, the erstwhile Travancore royal family had leased more than 400 acres of land to a trader Abdul Sathar Moosa Sait, The Indian Express reported. The land had already been occupied by fishing communities.

In 1948, the trader’s son-in-law, Mohammed Siddeeq Sait, got the leased land registered in his name and decided to hand it over to the management of Kozhikode’s Farook College. The college had been established in 1948 to empower Muslims from northern Kerala through education.

In the 1960s, a legal battle began between the occupants of the land and the management of the college, which wanted to evict them, according to The Indian Express. The occupants did not have legal documents to prove ownership of the land despite residing there for generations, the newspaper added.

Subsequently, the college management sold the land to its occupants.

However, the college management did not mention in the sale deeds that the land in question was waqf property but instead said that the property was received under a gift deed in 1950.

In 2019, the Kerala Waqf Board staked claim on the land. In 2022, the state revenue department froze the owners’ revenue rights, The Indian Express reported.

Since then, the residents, a majority of whom are Catholics, had been demanding restoration of the rights.