Union Minister Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who tabled the Waqf Amendment Bill 2025 on floor of the Rajya Sabha on Thursday( April 3,2025),said what has been greeted by tribals across the country.

“ We are very happy to learn this. We feel this provision will protect us from land grab”, said Jobin Murmu, a school teacher whose view is shared by a dozen tribal intellectuals JharkhandStateNews.com talked to to elicit their opinion.

Rijiju has made it public that under the Waqf Amendment Bill 2025, no longer any Waqf provider be able to buy and or transfer any plot of tribal land falling under the Schedule 5 and 6 of the Constitution.

This means now a provision has been made in the bill that the Waqf Board will no longer be able to buy tribal land.

This has dual meanings. The process of buying tribal land and creating property of Waqf Board will end. This will stop the transfer of tribal land by Muslim to Muslim.

On the other hand, it will be prohibited for the Waqf Board to create property in a state like Jharkhand, home of tribals.It will not be possible to transfer the tribal land to non -tribal Muslim.

Union minority welfare minister Kiren Rijiju said that now only any officer above the rank of collector will look into the dispute of government land and any disputed land.

When Waqf creates property, it cannot go to any tribal area and buy land. This provision is of great significance for Jharkhand for another reason. In the Waqf Act. There will be three members in the Waqf Tribunal. A time limit will be set in its rules so that the cases registered in the tribunal are heard soon and the decision is taken soon.

Notably, there have been many complaints of encroachment of Waqf and tribal land in Jharkhand. After the enactment of this Act, this will be curbed and prevented.

The state of affairs of Waqf Board in Jharkhand is not beyond the reach of critiques. All the governments formed in this state after the formation of the state had ignored the Waqf Board. The result of this is that the Sunni Waqf Board should have been formed in Jharkhand immediately after the formation of the state in 2000. But it was formed after eight years in 2008.

It should have been reconstituted after five years. But it was reconstituted in 2014. At the end of 2014, the Welfare Department reconstituted the board by nominating its members, but no initiative was taken for the election of the chairman. As a result, the board continued to run without a chairman for five years.

After 2019, the Waqf Board remained inactive for a long time. Later, the state government made MP Sarfaraz Ahmed its chairman. According to the rules, Jharkhand Minority Welfare Ministry nominates members in the Waqf Board and the nominated members have to elect the chairman. But even after three years have rolled by, leave alone the chairman, even the members have not been nominated.

There is no audited data of how much revenue Jharkhand State Sunni Waqf Board receives annually. If the board is to be believed, out of 152 Waqf properties in the state, only 20-22 properties receive revenue in a year. That too in an irregular manner.

According to the Jharkhand Waqf Board administration, if seven percent revenue was received regularly every year from all the Waqf properties in the state, then the estimated amount would have been at least Rs 25 lakhs per year. 

According to these data, the Waqf Board would have received revenue of about Rs 3.5 crores in 14 years. Some properties of the Waqf Board are also under illegal occupation.