Justice Gavai-led Bench to take up pleas against Waqf (Amendment) Act

New Delhi: A Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sanjiv Khanna, on Monday directed that the clutch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, be listed before the Justice BR Gavai-led Bench for further hearing.

At the outset, CJI Khanna said that the Bench, also comprising Justices Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan, has gone through the pleadings, though not in detail, and did not intend to reserve its judgment at the interim stage in view of his impending retirement.

"We will post it before the bench of Justice Gavai on Wednesday or Thursday," the bench said.

CJI Khanna is set to demit the highest judicial office of the country on May 13 on the attainment of the age of 65 years. After his retirement, Justice Gavai, presently the senior-most puisne judge of the apex court, will be sworn in as the 52nd CJI.

In the previous hearing, the top court granted a week’s time to the Centre and state governments and the Waqf Boards to file their preliminary reply.

It decided to treat five writ petitions as lead cases and said that other pleas will be treated as intervention applications, apart from ordering the registry to rename the cause titles of the proceedings as "In Re: The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025". During the course of the hearing, the Union government assured the Supreme Court that it would not de-notify provisions related to 'waqf by user' or include non-Muslim members in the Waqf Board.