Wakf Board loses in Indore, 6.7 acres of valuable land goes to Municipal Corporation

The Municipal Corporation has won a 45-year-old case in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. The Waqf Board’s claim has ended in the legal battle over 6.7 acres of land. The land has been handed over to the Municipal Corporation.

Ratan Gupta language, IndoreTue, 17 Sep 2024 02:50 PM Share

The district court has rejected the claim of 6.70 acres of land of Karbala Maidan in Indore being Waqf property. The court has declared the Municipal Corporation as the owner of this valuable land. Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava informed about this decision of the court on Tuesday. He said that a legal battle was going on since 1979 regarding this disputed land. Now the Municipal Corporation has achieved a historic victory in this.

Bhargava said that the case filed by the Municipal Corporation to stop illegal occupation of Karbala Maidan was dismissed by a civil court in 2019. After this, the Municipal Corporation challenged this decision in the District Court and Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board, Karbala Maidan Committee and other people of the Muslim side were made defendants. District Judge Narsingh Baghel, accepting the appeal of the Municipal Corporation, said in the verdict passed on September 13 that the defendants have failed to prove that the disputed land is a Waqf property.

The court declared the Municipal Corporation as the owner of 6.70 acres of land of Karbala Maidan in the light of the provisions of Indore Municipal Act 1909 and Madhya Bharat Municipal Act 1917 prevalent during the reign of Holkar dynasty and Municipal Act 1956 made after the merger of Holkar state in the Indian Union. In the district court, the Municipal Corporation said that there is a similar provision in these laws that all the open lands of the city, except government and private properties, will be vested in the properties of the Municipal Corporation.

The defendants told the court that the previous Holkar rulers had reserved the land of Karbala Maidan for cooling the Tajias on Muharram, where a mosque is also built. The Muslim community claimed that it has been in continuous possession of this land for about 200 years. However, after considering the facts in its decision, the court came to the conclusion that for the last 150 years a part of this land has been used for the religious work of cooling the Tajias.