India’s Opposition parties have welcomed the judicial interventions that took place during the Supreme Court’s hearing of the petitions challenging the Waqf (Amendment) Act on Thursday, with the Congress describing them as “a win for the Constitution”. The Opposition’s mood can be gauged from the set of interim reliefs that the apex court provided on the matter. The court has given the Centre a week’s time to submit its response to the petitions challenging the Waqf (Amendment) Act after it was assured that any court-declared waqf property, either by ‘waqf by user’ or ‘waqf by deed’, will not be denotified till the next hearing. No new appointments are to be made to the Central Waqf Council and to the State Boards either. The government will not be able to take back disputed properties that are being scrutinised by district collectors in the course of the legal proceedings. That the court was sceptical about certain provisions of the amended law, chiefly the induction of non-Muslims into the Central Waqf Council and State Boards, the denotification of properties declared as waqf, and the unchecked powers given to the district collector to identify the validity of such properties, had been apparent even during the hearing on Wednesday. On that day, Justice K.V. Viswanathan had even asked the solicitor-general to explain the rationale of having non-Muslims in the Waqf Council and boards while pointing out that Hindu charitable endowment acts do not provide space for non-Hindus in their boards. Thursday’s proceedings did not really bring any relief to the government; there was thus a sense of continuity as far as the hearings were concerned over the two days.

The legal proceedings will continue and a new date has been set for the next hearing. But the Supreme Court’s interim directives on Thursday could have an immediate beneficial effect. They would provide a sense of calm to constituencies battling a sense of besiegement and restrain them from committing rash acts. Bengal’s Murshidabad, incidentally, had witnessed riots after a protest against the contentious Waqf Act. The immediate political outcomes from the court’s observations have unfolded along expected lines. The Opposition is on the offensive: it would like to attribute the court’s reasoning to infirmities in the amended legislation. The Centre is on the defensive. It remains to be seen whether there is a change in respective positions in the days to come.