As a parliamentary panel reviews the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, a land dispute in Kerala has captured national attention.
The Kerala State Waqf Board has long claimed ownership of 404 acres along the Munambam coast in Ernakulam district—land that has been home to around 600 Christian and Hindu families for generations.
600 families, including Christian and Hindu, challenge the Kerala Waqf Board’s claim in the Munambam waqf land dispute. (Image: Representational AI image generated by OpIndia using Grok)
Now, with residents protesting the Muslim body’s move to secure the land’s title deeds, the BJP has turned it into a key issue for the upcoming bye-elections. This development gains significance after the Kerala Assembly unanimously passed a resolution last month, urging the Centre to withdraw the Waqf Amendment Bill.
Here's a brief overview of the land dispute in Munambam.
Origin of the dispute
The disputed land spans the villages of Kuzhuppilly and Pallipuram in Munambam, located on the northern tip of Vypin Island in Kerala’s Ernakulam district. Historically, it has been home to traditional fishing communities. Currently, around 604 families reside on the land, with approximately 400 belonging to the backward Latin Catholic Christian community and the remainder comprising backward Hindus.
The origins of the dispute date back to 1902 when the Travancore royal family leased 404 acres of land, already inhabited by fishing communities, to a trader named Abdul Sathar Moosa Sait, who had settled in Mattancherry near Kochi.
In 1948, Moosa Sait’s son-in-law and successor, Mohammed Siddeeq Sait, registered the leased land in his name. He later transferred the land to the management of Farook College in Kozhikode, an institution founded in 1948 to promote education among Muslims in Malabar (northern Kerala).
On November 1, 1950, a waqf deed was executed at the sub-registrar’s office in Edappally, Kochi, by Siddeeq Sait in favor of the president of Farook College. A waqf deed is a legal document that designates property as waqf — a permanent endowment for charitable or religious purposes under Islamic law.
Initial legal dispute
Around a decade later, the management of Farook College received the title deed for the land. In the late 1960s, a legal dispute arose between the land's occupants—who, despite living there for generations, lacked legal ownership documents—and the college management, which sought to evict them.
Ultimately, the issue was resolved through an out-of-court settlement, with the college management agreeing to sell the land to its occupants at market value. Sale documents reveal that the college did not disclose that the land was waqf property, granted to the president of the college management committee for educational purposes. Instead, they stated that the property had been received through a gift deed in 1950.
Nissar Commission and the revived controversy
Following several complaints against the state’s Waqf Board, the CPI(M) government led by V S Achuthanandan established an inquiry commission in 2008, headed by retired district judge M A Nissar. The commission was tasked with determining accountability for the board’s asset losses and suggesting measures for their recovery.
In 2009, the commission presented its findings, declaring the Munambam land to be waqf property. It also reported that the college management had approved the sale of the land without the board’s authorization and recommended steps for its recovery.
Subsequently, in 2019, the Waqf Board declared the Munambam land as waqf property under Sections 40 and 41 of the Waqf Act of 1995. The board instructed the Revenue Department to stop accepting land tax payments from the current occupants (who had been paying for years). However, the state government overruled this directive in 2022.
The Waqf Board challenged this decision in the Kerala High Court later that year. The court has temporarily stayed the state government’s actions, and over a dozen appeals from the land’s occupants and the Waqf Protection Samithi remain pending before the court.
What comes next?
Muslim organizations, led by the Indian Union Muslim League, have stated that they do not seek to evict the current land occupants and have advocated for an out-of-court settlement. The Kerala government has scheduled a high-level meeting later this month to address the issue, while the BJP has seized the opportunity to engage more with Kerala's Christian community.
In the past month, the Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council and other Christian organizations have been leading a vocal protest against the eviction of the residents of Munambam. The residents are seeking a swift resolution, as without land tax receipts, they are unable to use their properties as collateral for loans.
Although the dispute officially concerns 404 acres of land — granted to Abdul Sathar Moosa Sait in 1902 — the actual area in question is likely much smaller. Due to extensive erosion over the years, the land, located between the Arabian Sea and the Periyar River, now comprises only 225 acres, according to the Revenue Department.
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