Plea in Supreme Court challenges mandatory digital upload of Waqf details, flags issues with online portal

A plea has been filed before the Supreme Court challenging the Central government's requirement for the mandatory digital upload of Waqf property details on the UMEED (Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency, and Development) Portal.

The plea by a mutawalli (appointed manager or trustee of a Waqf) from Madhya Pradesh alleges that the online platform is structurally defective, technologically unworkable, and incompatible with the State’s legal framework.

The petition questions the enforceability of Section 3B of the Waqf Act, 1995 -introduced through the 2025 amendment, which requires all existing Waqfs to upload their details on the UMEED Portal.

The petitioner contends that the portal, notified under the UMEED Rules, 2025, is “technologically incapable of fulfilling its statutory purpose” and “forces false declarations in violation of law.”

The plea says that according to the Ministry of Minority Affairs’ data, 30 States and 32 Waqf Boards together manage over 8.72 lakh Waqf properties covering more than 38 lakh acres of land. However, less than 20 per cent have been uploaded on the centralised portal, despite the statutory deadline of December 5.

The petition emphasises that in Madhya Pradesh, nearly 99 per cent of all Waqf properties are Section 5 Survey/Gazette-notified Waqfs, not Waqf-by-User as categorised on the UMEED Portal.

Yet, the portal provides no option to register a Survey/Gazette Waqf, compelling mutawallis to choose inaccurate modes such as Waqf-by-User or “dedication,” which do not apply in the State.

Therefore, compliance is legally impossible without falsifying records, the plea states.

The plea also points out that the portal has been plagued by nationwide technical failures since its inception, with repeated system crashes, broken workflows, missing districts and villages, and rejection of valid land-record formats.

A 195-page “Summary of Common Grievances” compiled by the Ministry reportedly documents these defects, with complaints from across States including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh.

For Madhya Pradesh specifically, the petition said the portal’s design rejects the land-record formats used in the State, such as multi-khasra holdings and decimal entries, making it impossible to upload accurate data.

It argues that penalising mutawallis for non-uploading of details due to such systemic failures violates Articles 14, 21, 25, 26, and 300A of the Constitution, as it deprives them of their rights without due process.

The petition notes that while the statutory timeline under Section 3B is extendable till June 2026, the extension would not solve the fundamental issue that the portal itself is “non-functional and incompatible.”

The plea also highlights that the Centre’s own letter to all Chief Ministers dated November 18, 2025, showed poor compliance across major States: Uttar Pradesh had uploaded only 35 per cent of its Waqf properties, West Bengal 12 per cent, and Karnataka and Tamil Nadu just 10 per cent.

It further notes that even though several provisions of the 2025 amendment, including Sections 3B, 36, and 61, are already under constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court, the Union Ministry continues to enforce the defective system.

The plea thus seeks a direction from the Court to ask the Centre and the Central Waqf Council to rectify the issues plaguing the UMEED Portal, incorporate the option to register “Survey/Gazette” Waqfs, and provide a lawful alternative mode of compliance until the system is fixed.

It has also sought protection from penal consequences arising from non-compliance, which the petitioner says is solely because of the government’s faulty digital mechanism.

The plea has been filed through Advocates Vaibhav Choudhary and Syed Ashhar Ali Warsi.