Advocate Tahir Hakim has filed an important petition before the Gujarat State Waqf Tribunal in Gandhinagar, asking for a six month extension for registering Waqf properties on the Central Government’s UMEED portal. The petition has been filed on behalf of Jamiate Ulema Hind in Vadodara, the Tandalja Development Council and several other Auqaf and Mutawallis across Gujarat. The Supreme Court had earlier refused to extend the deadline and advised applicants to approach the Tribunal, which led to this collective move.
The application has been filed as a representative case for all Auqaf in Gujarat because the problems they face are the same everywhere. The petition argues that a common order is necessary to avoid hundreds of similar cases and to ensure fair treatment for everyone. The Union Government, the Gujarat State Waqf Board and the State Nodal Agency managing the UMEED portal have been named as respondents.
The main complaint is that the deadline was impossible to meet because the UMEED portal repeatedly failed to function. The petition states that the portal was extremely slow, often crashed while documents were being uploaded, and frequently erased the information that users had entered. In some cases, uploaded files were rejected without any explanation. Several towns, villages and even whole districts, including Aravalli, were missing from the system’s location options. There were continued problems with the Maker Checker system that the Waqf Board uses to verify documents. Many checkers said they were unable to view the uploaded files and could not see any option to approve or reject them.
The technical issues were made worse by administrative delays. Many Auqaf were unable to collect old records such as Public Trust Registers, revenue documents and audit papers because government departments had not aligned their procedures with the new digital system. The Waqf Board itself could not provide PTR copies for all districts until late November. These delays made it impossible for many applicants to finish the required paperwork. The petition argues that it is unfair for the government to demand strict compliance when its own system made compliance impossible.
The petition asks the Tribunal to recognise July 3, 2025, the date the UMEED Rules were notified, as the actual starting point for compliance. As an alternative, it requests that November 17, 2025 be treated as the start date, as authorities had claimed that major technical problems were fixed only by then. It also asks the Tribunal to consider the date when each missing town or village was finally added to the portal as the effective compliance date for those specific areas. The applicants want the Tribunal to grant a uniform six month extension for all Auqaf in Gujarat to complete registration and to order the government to fix every remaining defect in the UMEED system. They have also asked for a stay on all penalties and other actions related to non registration until the case is fully heard.
Jamiat Ulama e Hind, one of the petitioners, is a national organisation founded in 1919 that works on religious, social and legal issues affecting Muslims across India. The Tandalja Development Council represents several Auqaf and Mutawallis in Gujarat and has joined the case to support the demand for fair and workable registration conditions.
