Govt cannot be faulted for Sealing Waqf Board office: HC

The High Court at Hyderabad has directed the Telangana State government to complete its digitisation of Waqf Board records within six weeks and hand them over to the Board along with original record. It also made clear that the intention of the government in sealing the Waqf Board office cannot be found fault with.

The division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice G Shyam Prasad gave these directions on Tuesday while disposing of the Public Interest Litigation petition filed by advocate M A K Muqeed challenging the action of the government in sealing the Waqf Board office.

Telangana Advocate General D Prakash Reddy submitted to the court that there was only one room being used now to store the seized records and that there was no obstruction whatsoever in the functioning of the Board. He said it would take at least four to six weeks to digitise the records.

The bench observed that it cannot find fault with the government for trying to digitise the records and said it would be in the interest of the institution to have such a record. It directed the government to complete the exercise within six weeks and hand over the record, both the original and the digitised version to the Waqf Board. It disposed of the PIL with this direction.