Colby Cosh: Supreme Court to decide which comes first — Crown oath or Sikh faith

The Supreme Court has granted permission to challenge a Gujarat High Court decision that allowed waqf suits to be rejected due to non-payment of court fees. The High Court made this ruling in January this year, citing its own decision from December 2025 that waqf institutions were not exempt from paying court fees before the State Waqf Tribunal.

The petition was filed in the Supreme Court by the Ahmedabad Sunni Muslim Waqf Committee, through advocate Ejaz Maqbool, and is now being heard by a bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi. In their plea, the committee argued that neither the Waqf Act nor the Rules require waqf institutions to pay court fees, thus the High Court's ruling effectively excludes payment of these fees.

The High Court dismissed a series of challenges to the Gujarat State Waqf Tribunal's decisions rejecting proceedings due to insufficient court fees on December 17, 2025. It held that waqf institutions do not benefit from a blanket exemption or waiver from paying court fees for proceedings under Section 83 of the Waqf Act, which are initiated through an application rather than a plaint or suit.

The High Court concluded that these proceedings, which involve the adjudication of waqf property rights, including landlord-tenant disputes, are similar to civil suits and require written statements, issues framing, evidence presentation, and final adjudication.