Lieutenant Governor of National Capital Territory of Delhi VK Saxena has allowed arraignment authorization to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to continue against Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan in the issue of unlawful arrangements bringing about harm to the public cash safes.

With the LG’s approval, CBI will proceed against him for illegal appointments while he was chairman Waqf Board, causing a loss to the exchequer. The AAP MLA from the Okhla assembly has been booked by CBI under the prevention of corruption act and other relevant sections of the IPC. Khan is also accused of corrupt actions and criminal offenses including deliberate and criminal violation of rules, regulations, and misuse of position.

Apart from Amanatullah Khan, approval has also been granted to proceed against Mehboob Alam, then CEO of Waqf Board, for criminal violation of rules, misusing of position, causing loss to the public exchequer and other relevant sections.

The case against Khan was filed by a Subdivisional magistrate in the revenue depart of the Delhi govt in 2016, alleging illegal appointments in the Waqf Board, causing a loss of public money. Following the complaint, the CBI lodged an FIR in 2016. Reportedly, CBI has probed the matter and found substantial evidence against the AAP MLA, after which the CBI sought permission from LG to proceed against him.

According to the complaint, the CEO of the new waqf board and over 30 staff members were appointed and employed in contravention of Section 24 of the Waqf Act, 1955 and Delhi Waqf Rules, 1977. The FIR stated that irregular and illegal appointments of officials had led to the loss of revenue of the Delhi Waqf Board, and the appointments were done by misusing their official positions as public servants. It was alleged that waqf board properties were leased to the tenants and the encroachers were allowed to possess the properties in contravention of lease rules leading to the loss of revenue/assets for the board.

Khan has a spotty record of disparaging comments and unlawful conduct. Several FIRs have been filed against him, and he is being tried in the majority of them. Amanatullah Khan had threatened Swamy Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, the main abbot of Dasna Temple, with violence in April 2021 for remarks about Prophet Muhammad. Khan was also declared a BC by Delhi Police earlier this year.

In 2020, Khan was in news for allegedly facilitating the settlement of Rohingya Muslims in Delhi’s Madnapur Khadar. Over 300 Rohingya Muslims were illegally settled in the Madanpur Khadar area of Delhi and are expanding their base, a report by Dainik Bhaskar said. The report also added that they were living illegally right across the cremation ground in the Madanpur Khadar area of the national capital. Moreover, they were settled on the land of the irrigation department of the Uttar Pradesh government which is about 5.2 acres of land.

As per the report, they received all government benefits as well. Amid the lockdown, the Delhi Government and Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan have been providing a huge amount of rations to them. Madanpur Khadar falls under the Okhla constituency in New Delhi. As per the report, the illegal settlement of Rohingya Muslims had also stolen electricity through illegal means and also have boring water.

Amanatullah Khan was also seen with Sharjeel Imam, the mastermind of the Shaheen Bagh protests who had urged Muslims to cut off North East India from the rest of the country. Sharjeel Imam is now rotting in prison. An FIR was also registered by Ghaziabad Police against Khan for inciting violence through his social media posts. It is also alleged that Khan made an inflammatory speech before violence broke out at Jamia Milia on the 15th of December in 2020.

Gaurav Pradhan Analysis

CBI opened a case against AAP Amanatullah Khan to investigate the misuse of taxpayers' money for WAQF

AAP MLA अमानतुल्लाह खान पर चलेगा केस, LG ने CBI को मुकदमा चलाने की अनुमति दी

How waqf board scam was unveiled. Madrasa scholarship and Geo tagging of Lands.

किले में सेंध लग गई
उलटी गिनती शुरू

Geotagging of Waqf properties picks up pace

The long-delayed project to geotag all Waqf properties across the country that began in 2017 under the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs’ “Quami Waqf Boards Taraqqiati Scheme” has yet again revised its deadline from March 2022 to November 2023. 

The scheme was envisaged based on recommendations made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee in the past. The government wanted to map the immovable assets under the Waqf boards, to ensure their proper utilization and monetization. The exercise is also aimed at ensuring that these properties are not lost to encroachments and other counter ownership claims. 

According to estimates, there are over six lakh Waqf properties, out of which, in the last five years, 2 lakh properties have been geotagged. To speed up the process, the Central Waqf Council, an autonomous body under the Minority Affairs Ministry, has called for bids by March 21 to empanel more agencies to carry out the GIS/GPS survey. A pre-bid meeting has been called for on Wednesday.

Sources said the council aimed to hire 20 agencies to speed up the work. In December, it hired nine more agencies that included IITs in Hyderabad, Jodhpur, and Kanpur as also the Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi.

The delay, according to the sources, was primarily because “realistic targets” based on actual experiences were not set. It was earlier estimated that by March 2020, at least 50 percent of the properties will be geotagged. But by February 2021, the exercise had been undertaken only for 96,000 properties, as per the standing committee report.

Pandemic problem

The Ministry cited the pandemic as the prime reason for the tardy progress. However, as officials pointed out, in the last five years since the work on the project started, only three agencies were working on it, with often no ground presence in the areas they are surveying, which brought in multifarious issues.

 “We just could not foresee the challenges involved in this project,” a senior Ministry official said. The State governments and often the Mutawalli (the property management) have not been cooperative. In several places, the survey teams had to even face hostilities. The documentation of these properties had also been messy. There have been instances that they may have been rented out and then sublet by the tenants over extended periods. 

The geo surveys have also thrown up some interesting findings. “The registered Waqf properties are little over six lakh, but in the last five years, the surveys have shown more properties, and the number today stands at eight lakh, subject to verification. Chhattisgarh alone has reported 36,000 new properties, which needs to be cross verified,” the official added.