The debate over irregularities inside Uttar Pradesh's Waqf boards has flared up again, this time carried straight into the Chief Minister's residence. Former minister Mohsin Raza travelled to Lucknow on Sunday and met Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, using the meeting to flag what he described as large-scale scams and irregularities running through the state's Waqf boards.
A sharp drop in registered Waqf properties
During the conversation, Raza told the Chief Minister that only 1,27,000 Waqf properties remain registered in the state today, compared with more than 2 lakh some years ago. He blamed the gap on the earlier years of Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress rule, arguing that the Waqf board was never properly audited during that period, leaving the records of lakhs of properties unclear to this day and creating the conditions for the scale of alleged fraud now coming to light.
Backing the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025
The former minister also welcomed the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, brought in under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling it essential for bringing transparency to Waqf assets while ensuring their protection and proper use. He stressed that the time has now come for a swift, impartial investigation to establish the true, on-ground status of Waqf properties across the state.
More than 70,000 properties missing from records
Raza told the meeting that more than seventy thousand Waqf properties have either been struck off registration records or have simply disappeared from them altogether, a gap he said points to corruption worth crores of rupees. He added that complaints of illegal occupation and commercial misuse of Waqf land have poured in from districts well beyond Lucknow, including Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Meerut, Saharanpur, Ayodhya, Bareilly, Noida, Agra, Prayagraj, Aligarh, Varanasi, Amroha, Bijnor and Azamgarh. According to him, properties that were set aside centuries ago for religious and social purposes have drifted far from that original intent, with genuine beneficiaries no longer seeing the benefit those assets were meant to provide.
Raza's key demands to CM Yogi
- All properties under both the Shia and Sunni Waqf boards should be verified through district-wise SIT teams.
- A special audit should run in every district, backed by physical inspection and cross-checking of old records, to produce a complete list matching registered entries against properties that actually exist on the ground.
- Wherever manipulation, fake ownership transfers, illegal leases or unauthorised changes of possession turn up, swift, strict legal action should follow, along with recovery and restoration of the properties involved.
- Long-pending Waqf-by-user disputes should also be resolved.
- A transparent probe into any guilty individuals, institutions, mutawallis, influential religious figures or politically connected groups should be conducted, with findings made public.
- Genuine policies should free Waqf land from illegal occupation and put it to development use, so the real needy, backward sections and marginalised members of the minority community see a direct benefit.
- District-level committees should be set up statewide to run sustained monitoring, audits and recovery drives that restore transparency, accountability and public trust.
An appeal to the Chief Minister
Wrapping up his appeal, Raza urged the Chief Minister to act on the matter at a high level, impartially and without delay, in keeping with his government's anti-corruption, zero-tolerance stance. He said that given how sensitive the issue is and how directly it touches the public interest, an SIT probe and special audit should be launched immediately, with a decision taken in the interest of the people.
