Hyderabad: The Wakf Board is in a legal tangle over the membership status of MIM legislator Moazam Khan MLA and Bar Council member Z.H. Javed, as both of them have retained membership of their respective forums.
Mr Khan was elected under the Muslim members of the State Legislature category of the Wakf Board, and Mr Javed under the Bar Council electoral college quota, both unanimously.
Mr Khan, a legislator at that time, was re-elected in the December 7 Assembly elections. Mr Javed was a member of the previous undivided AP Bar Council and elected recently to the Bar Council of Telangana state.
According to the explanation in Section 14 of the Wakf Act, the Wakf Board membership of an MLA or MP is coterminous with their tenure in the respective House. There is no such explanation incorporated in the amendments to the Act in 2013 pertaining to the member elected from the Bar Council category.
Wakf Board officials are confused whether or not to intimate Mr Khan and Mr Javed regarding the next meeting which is likely to be held on January 3. Officials are uncertain because Mr Khan was re-elected, but the Act says his membership is vacated automatically when the previous Assembly was dissolved.
One opinion is that Mr Khan would lose his Wakf Board membership after Assembly was dissolved. The other opinion is that an MLA or MP after being re-elected and needs to be elected again to the Wakf Board.
The case of Mr Javed is similar. He was a member of the Bar Council of undivided Andhra Pradesh at the time of Wakf Board elections. He was subsequently reelected member of the Telangana Bar Council.
Another lawyer, Mr M.A.K. Muqeed was also elected as Bar Council member and he has submitted a representation to accommodate him in the Wakf Board.
Wakf Board authorities had sought legal opinion from the legal adviser and the government pleader in the social welfare department. Here too, opinion was divided.
The legal adviser contended that the membership of a Board member elected under Bar Council category was not coterminous and he could complete his term in the Board irrespective of the status of his House.
The government pleader felt that there should be a fresh election as Mr Javed was a member of the Bar Council of undivided AP and a separate Bar Council has been constituted now for Telangana state.
The Wakf Act says the member should belong to Bar Council of the concerned state, he pointed out.
