Question

Which clause in the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025, was stayed by the Supreme Court for requiring 5-year practice of Islam for waqf creation?

Hint:

The stayed clause = 5-year Islam practice requirement. Reason = violates Arts. 25–26–14; undermines waqf-by-user and new converts.

Answer 1

The Supreme Court stayed the operation of the **clause requiring that a waqif (person creating a waqf) must have practised Islam continuously for 5 years** before creating a waqf. 
This requirement was contained in: 

\[\boxed{Section 3(1)(b) / Proviso to the definition of “waqif” in the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025}\]

 (Exact renumbering may vary by Bill draft, but the stayed clause is the “5-year practising Muslim” requirement in the definitional section.) 
Why did the SC stay it? 
Because it prima facie violates: 

Article 25 – right to freely profess and practise religion, 
Article 26 – denominational autonomy to administer religious endowments, 
Article 14 – arbitrary classification between 5-year practitioners vs new converts, 
Article 300A – prevents valid religious dedication of property. 
The Court observed that: 
The State cannot condition the validity of a religious dedication on the “duration” of religious practice. 
Thus, the stay protects: 

new converts, 
individuals wishing to dedicate property without waiting 5 years, 
waqf-by-user doctrines. 
 

Answer 2

To answer this, it helps to separate two things: identifying the specific provision the Supreme Court stayed, and explaining why the Court treated it as serious enough to warrant an interim stay rather than leaving it in force pending final hearing.

The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 inserted a new definitional requirement for who counts as a valid waqif, the person who can create a waqf. That requirement is that the person must have practised Islam continuously for five years before making the dedication. This condition sits in the definitional clause of the Act, referred to as Section 3(1)(b) or its proviso, depending on the exact drafting and numbering used in the version of the Bill or Act being referenced.

The Supreme Court stayed this specific requirement, and not the whole Act, because it is the one provision that most directly threatens the validity of religious dedications based purely on how long someone has practised their faith, rather than on the substance of the dedication itself. A five-year bright-line rule has no obvious connection to whether a person's religious intention to create a waqf is genuine, and it would burden recent converts and anyone who cannot produce proof of the duration of their religious practice, effectively making the enforceability of a religious dedication depend on an arbitrary and hard-to-verify timeline.

This is why, pending final adjudication, the Supreme Court chose to stay only the five-year practising-Muslim requirement in the waqif definition, while leaving other parts of the Amendment in operation.

Therefore, the correct answer is the clause defining waqif to require five years of continuous practice of Islam, found in Section 3(1)(b) (the proviso to the definition of waqif) of the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025.