The Prince Aly Khan Hospital has been accused of using land endowed for Wakf for religious and charitable activities to build a luxury housing project in Mazgaon called the Aga Hall Estate. The hospital trust has denied the allegations and said that the Aga Hall Estate isfully legal and in due compliance of all applicable laws.’
The proposed residential skyscraper with two wings on Nesbit Road will have over 380 apartments, apart from homes for families that lived in tenanted buildings in the complex. The hospital and residential buildings belong to the Ismaili Shia community and are named after the title of their spiritual leader.
A tenant from the complex has complained to the Maharashtra State Wakf Tribunal in Aurangabad, questioning the redevelopment. Wakf refers to properties endowed for religious and charity purposes that cannot be alienated for any other use.
The main point of dispute is whether the land is under the jurisdiction of Wakf or the Charity Commissioner, Maharashtra State, which administers public trusts. The tenant has said that the No Objection Certificate given by the Charity Commissioner for the project is wrong as it does not have the jurisdiction over the property. The complainant, who has also approached the civil courts against the eviction from the premises, has said that the eviction is illegal and has been done without following the process of law. The complainant has sought an injunction from the tribunal to restrain further development. PAKH, on the other hand, has said that it is regulated by the Charity Commissioner, and the redevelopment is being done after permissions from the Charity Commissioner.
However, the issue has been intensely questioned and debated in the Urdu media and social media, with local community leaders joining the debate. The trustee of Jama Masjid, the city's main mosque, Shuaib Khatib, said that the issue has raised concerns about the role of local politicians in the loss of Wakf properties that were bequeathed for community use
Yusuf Baugwala, the advocate representing the complainant, said that the property was donated by Prince Aly Khan to start a hospital. “It was given to the community in perpetuity,” said Baugwala who added that the now defunct hospital which had 154 beds, which started as a relatively small medical facility in the 1950s, had a reputed cancer treatment facility. The hospital shut down operations in 2022 after the building was declared as dilapidated by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
The complainant has said that under the Wakf Act which came into force in January 1996, all Muslim religious trusts were transferred from the Charity Commissioner’s jurisdiction to the Maharashtra State Board of Wakf. Many trusts challenged the transfer. According to the complainant, the hospital trust obtained permissions for the project during the pendency of the dispute.
PAKH said that the allegations are ‘incorrect and false’ and said they would take legal action for defamation against those making the claims. In a statement to this newspaper PAKH said that it is public trust and not included in the November 2003 list of Wakf properties in Maharashtra. The trust said that when another list published in May 2005 included the name of the hospital, the trust challenged it before the Wakf tribunal. During the pendency of the suit, the Wakf Board in October 2008 withdrew the 2005 list. “It must also be noted that PAKH is not a Wakf and that the objects of PAKH are not those of a Wakf and its land was never dedicated,” the statement said.
The trust has said that land was leased from the District Collector for a period of over 100 years and in 2019, the state government converted the tenure of the land from Leasehold Tenure (Occupant Class-2) to Occupant Class-1/Freehold Tenure, making PAKH the absolute owner of the land. Adding that information circulating the public is ‘ill- informed and malicious disinformation’, the trust added that they can use the land for any purpose, including for the development of The Aga Hall Estate.
The trust said that it is part of the Aga Khan Development Network and works under the auspices, ethics, guidelines and principles of the AKDN. “PAKH reserves its right to pursue all available legal remedies and take legal action, as advised, against the entities and those responsible for deliberately spreading false and damaging information with the intent to harm the reputation of PAKH,” the statement said.
