On Friday (September 16), Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (JuH) moved the Delhi High Court against a petition, which challenged the draconian provisions of the Waqf Act. As per reports, the Islamic outfit opposed the petition by BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay and urged the court to hear all State Waqf Boards before passing a verdict on the matter. Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind claimed that the petition would impact the institution of Waqf in the country, which is supposedly based on the Islamic tradition of philanthropy, charity and merit. The matter was heard by a 2-Judge Bench of Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and Subramonium Prasad. “The institution of waqf is well recognised in our country with a comprehensive legal mechanism in place for the same,” JuH said in its petition.  It further added, “‘Waqf’ refers to Muslim religious endowments and institutions of various kinds recognised all over the world as an Islamic tradition of merit, charity and philanthropy.” The Islamic outfit accused the BJP leader of filing petitions against the practices of the Muslim community and using the legal system as a tool to harass them. “The line of petitions before the courts in India is being used by him as a tool to harass Muslims as a community,” it argued. “This Hon’ble court, while granting any indulgence to him while entertaining his petition must examine malafide intent of scrupulous litigants like the present petitioner,” JuH demanded. BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay had earlier moved the Delhi High Court challenging Sections 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 14 of the Waqf Act. He argued that the legislation is against the idea of secularism and that no similar law exists for adherents of other religions. Upadhyay pointed out that the Waqf Boards and Waqf Tribunal were conferred special status by the Parliament at the cost of the Indian taxpayers. He added that no safeguards are been provided to those whose properties have been claimed by Waqf. In his petition, the BJP leader said that Waqf owns 8 lakh hectares of land in India and has 6.6 lakh registered properties. In this way, Waqf is the third largest landowner in the country after the Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Defence. When the Delhi High Court sought his comments about the petition of Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind, he dubbed the Islamic outfit as a separatist organisation with a history of supporting Triple Talaq. JUH, one of the most influential and largest Islamic organisations, has provided legal support to Muslims accused of terrorism cases for over a decade now. It has defended its actions, saying that they provide legal services to ‘innocent Muslims’. The legal cell, set up by JUH president Maulana Arshad Madani in 2007, takes up the cases and enlists lawyers to defend the terror accused in the courts. According to a New Indian Express report, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind has offered its services to around 700 accused. What is worrying about such interventions is that they have been able to get acquittals of at least 192 terror accused since 2007. Most of the acquittals did not take place owing to the proven innocence of the accused. Instead, the Muslim men were released due to a lack of evidence or shoddy investigation by the police. Some of the other cases in which Jamiat has come forward to provide legal aid to terror-accused: