Madras High Court recently struck down an amendment brought out by the State Legislation in 2020 to the Tamil Nadu Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act bringing Wakf properties under the ambit of the act.
The Madras High Court recently struck down an amendment brought out by the State Legislation in 2020 to the Tamil Nadu Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act bringing Wakf properties under the ambit of the act. The bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy observed that since an amendment was brought into the central act- Wakf Act, which already provided a mechanism to deal with encroachments, the state legislature was repugnant and void. The court emphasized that Section 85 of the Central legislation had expressly prohibited the jurisdiction of other authorities and thus there was no scope of harmony between the central and state legislation.“ The elementary rule of interpretation is to read the provisions harmoniously, so that the provisions of one statute do not become a dead letter. Viewing the matter from any perspective, there is no possibility to harmonise. Having left with no choice, we are declaring the State Legislation as repu