The Supreme Court has restored a Wakf Board’s injunction against interference with 16 acres and 5 guntas of “Mafi Inam” land near a mosque in Shamshabad, Ranga Reddy district, which the Telangana High Court had set aside for want of proof of possession. Th SC held that there was no cloud on the Board’s title, because the land had been notified as wakf property by a gazette notification in 1989, and no one had challenged this within the one-year limit.
A suit for injunction simpliciter is maintainable where there is no cloud on the plaintiff’s title and no real dispute about possession. A notification of a property as wakf under Section 5(2) of the Wakf Act, 1954 is conclusive unless it is challenged within the statutory limit of one year, which runs from the date of knowledge. Persons who hold land entrusted to them for the service of a wakf institution, such as a “maafi inam”, have no right to transfer it, so a purchaser through such persons acquires no title and cannot defeat the wakf’s claim.
An injunction simpliciter (literally a “bare injunction”) is a civil suit in which the plaintiff seeks only a court order to restrain a defendant from interfering with their peaceful possession or rights, without asking the court to formally declare ownership or award recovery of possession. Under Indian law (governed by the Specific Relief Act), such a suit is maintainable only when the plaintiff is in actual, lawful possession of the property and their legal title is clear and undisputed; if a serious cloud is cast over the title or the plaintiff is out of possession, a bare injunction suit cannot be granted.
The land lies adjacent to Qutub Shahi Mosque, which has a dargah, a graveyard and a well in Survey No. 89, and the whole property stretches over about 37 acres 25 guntas. The defendants said they got possession through an agreement of sale and a Power of Attorney from earlier holders. The trial court granted the Board a permanent injunction, but the High Court allowed the defendants’ appeal, saying that the Board had produced no occupancy certificate under the Telangana Abolition of Inams Act or pahanis, and relying on Balkrishna Galande, which holds that an injunction needs proof of possession. Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran set this aside. They distinguished Anathula Sudhakar and Balkrishna Galande, saying that neither a cloud on title nor a real dispute on possession arose here. They noted that the defendants’ own pahanis from 1956-59 described the land as “maafi inam”, which is a service inam granted for maintaining a wakf institution. The 1968 Survey Commissioner’s report had already found that the persons in possession had no right to sell it, and no one challenged it. The Gazette Notification of 9 February 1989 under Section 5(2) of the Wakf Act, 1954 listed the mosque and the survey numbers, and any dispute had to be raised within one year, running from the date of knowledge. No such dispute was raised by the defendants or their vendors. The appeal was allowed and the trial court’s injunction made absolute. Two contempt petitions by the respondent, about alleged breach of the status quo order, were dismissed, as the acts did not affect the property and the respondent had no subsisting interest.
Note: This judgment is marked non-reportable, and the court did not decide any question of title beyond finding no cloud on the Board’s title. The defendants’ claim of possession through the sale agreement and the Power of Attorney was not accepted by the trial court for want of proof, which the Supreme Court did not disturb. The judgment says that the Wakf Act’s one-year limit has been interpreted as running “from the date of knowledge”
Citation: The A.P. State Wakf Board (Now Telangana State Wakf Board) v. Syed Masood Ahmed & Anr., Civil Appeal No. 2804 of 2024 (with Contempt Petition (C) Nos. 842 of 2026 and 635 of 2026), Supreme Court (Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran), 2026 INSC 1152 (Non-Reportable)
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