The main legal point established in the judgment is that the jurisdiction of the Waqf Tribunal is circumscribed by the provisions of the Waqf Act, and the tribunal cannot entertain suits that fall outside its jurisdictional scope.

JUDGMENT

Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J. - The present challenge has been preferred by the first defendant in a suit for recovery of possession from the defendant nos. 1 and 2, for damages from the defendant nos. 1 and 2 for making extensive illegal construction in the suit premises without any plan sanctioned by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, for permanent injunction restraining the defendant nos. 1 and 2 and their men, servants and agents from making further construction in the suit premises and from creating any third-party interest and for ancillary reliefs, before the Waqf Tribunal at Kolkata.

2. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner submits that, by virtue of the impugned order, the tribunal partially rejected the application, filed by both the defendants under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure on the ground that the civil court, and not the waqf tribunal, had jurisdiction to decide the suit. Such rejection was allowed only against the defendant no. 2.

3. The first ground taken by the petitioner is that the impugned order is contradictory inasmuch as the plaint was rejected against the defendant no.2 on the ground that eviction was sought against the said defendant, whereas, in spite of a similar relief having been sought against the defendant no.1/petitioner as well, the plaint was refused to be rejected against the petitioner.

4. It is next argued, on the basis of a judgment reported at [Syed Masoon Ali vs. Abu Naim Siddique & Anr.,2018 SCCOnLineCal 8390] rendered by this court, that Section 83(1) of the Waqf Act does not vest jurisdiction in the waqf tribunal. The tribunal's jurisdiction is, inter alia, derived from Sections 6, 7 and 54 of the Waqf Act, 1995.

5. It was held in the said judgment, that the inclusion of disputes relating to eviction of a tenant in Section 83(1) of the Waqf Act, relates only to constitution of tribunals and cannot operate beyond the periphery of Sections 6 and 7 of the said Act, which do not include suits for eviction against the tenant.

6. In the said judgment, it was further laid down that the judgment reported at [ Faseela Ms case, (2014) 16 SCC 38] took a contrary view than that taken in Board of Wakf, West Bengal and another vs. Anis Fatma Begum and another, (2010) 14 SCC 588 . The earlier case of Ramesh Gobindram vs. Sugra Humayun Mirza Wakf, (2010) 8 SCC 726 was also relied on for the aforesaid propositions.

7. Learned counsel for the petitioner further relies on a judgment reported at [ Punjab Wakf Board vs. Sham Singh Harike, (2019) 4 SCC 698] for a similar proposition, that Section 83 of the Waqf Act relates to bar of jurisdiction of civil court and the relevant words therein are "any dispute, question or other matter relating to a wakf or wakf property", which is required by or under the Waqf Act to be determined by the tribunal. Thus, it was held, bar of jurisdiction of civil court is confined only to those matters which are required to be determined by the tribunal under the said Act.

8. By placing reliance on the said judgments, it is argued on behalf of the petitioner that the waqf tribunal ought to have rejected the plaint as a whole, since the conspectus of the suit did not fall within the periphery of the jurisdiction of the waqf tribunal, as primarily reflected in Sections 6 and 7 of the Waqf Act.

9. It is submitted on behalf of the plaintiff/opposite party no.1 that Section 3(aa) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997 is not applicable to a public waqf. The present case, it is argued, pertains to a public waqf and as such, falls within the domain of the waqf tribunal.

10. Learned counsel for the opposite party no.1 relies on a judgment reported at [ Rashid Ali Molla vs. Board of Wakfs, (2019) 3 CalHN 268 (Cal)] , for the proposition that the tribunal had ample jurisdiction to take the consequential issue of eviction as well, not merely under Sections 52 or 54 of the Waqf Act but in the sense that such recovery was a fall-out of the negation