Question

Which clause in the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025, was stayed by the Supreme Court for requiring 5-year practice of Islam for waqf creation?

Hint:

The stayed clause = 5-year Islam practice requirement. Reason = violates Arts. 25–26–14; undermines waqf-by-user and new converts.

Answer 1

Step 1: Issue.
Which specific clause of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 did the Supreme Court stay, and why.

Step 2: Rule.
A court will stay a specific statutory clause, rather than an entire Act, when that clause on its own raises a strong prima facie case of unconstitutionality, typically because it conflicts with a specific fundamental right, while the remainder of the statute does not raise the same immediate concern.

Step 3: Application.
The Amendment's definition of waqif was changed to require that the person creating a waqf must have practised Islam continuously for five years. This condition appears in Section 3(1)(b), the proviso to the definition of waqif. Since a person's eligibility to make a valid religious dedication would depend on an arbitrary duration requirement unconnected to the sincerity of their religious belief or intention, this clause presented the clearest constitutional problem under Articles 14 and 25, and the Court accordingly limited its stay to this specific provision rather than suspending the Act as a whole.

Step 4: Conclusion.
The stayed clause is the five-year continuous-practice requirement in the definition of waqif.
\[ \boxed{\text{Section 3(1)(b), proviso to the definition of ``waqif''}} \]

Answer 2

The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 introduced several new features at once: a formal deed requirement for creating a waqf, a changed composition for State Waqf Boards, government verification of waqf properties, and the five-year Islamic-practice condition for anyone creating a waqf. To answer which one was stayed, it is useful to go through these features and see which one the question is actually describing.

The deed requirement and the property-verification mechanism are procedural changes to how waqfs are documented and recorded going forward, and while they raise their own concerns about older undocumented waqfs, they are not the five-year practice of Islam feature the question asks about.

The Board composition change deals with who sits on the State Waqf Board, a separate issue about denominational control over the administering body, again not the five-year practice condition.

The one feature that specifically ties eligibility to create a waqf to how long the person has practised Islam is the amended definition of waqif in the Act, which requires five years of continuous practice before a person's dedication of property as waqf will be recognised. This is the exact provision the question is describing, and it is this definitional requirement, located in Section 3(1)(b) (the proviso to the definition of waqif), that the Supreme Court stayed.

Therefore, the clause stayed by the Supreme Court is the five-year continuous-practice-of-Islam requirement in Section 3(1)(b), the proviso to the definition of waqif in the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025.