A Delhi mosque gazetted as waqf property since 1977 is facing a demolition order — and AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi wants to know why nobody in the system moved a finger to stop it. On Tuesday, 20 October 2026, Owaisi fired off a pointed three-part accountability demand at Union Minister Kiren Rijiju, laying out, step by step, where the institutional machinery failed the Race Course Masjid.

Three failures, one mosque

Owaisi's indictment is precise. First: despite the Race Course Masjid holding gazetted waqf status since 1977, the waqf board never challenged the demolition order and made no effort to resolve the dispute. Second: even under the Waqf Amendment Act — which explicitly protects 'waqf by user' properties registered in the past — no intervention was initiated. Third, and perhaps most structurally damning: the Delhi Waqf Board has not been constituted since 2023, creating a vacuum of accountability, and even the Board's CEO failed to step in where the Minister arguably should have.

'It's the Minister's job to resolve the matter since the Delhi Waqf Board hasn't been constituted since 2023,' Owaisi wrote, 'but the CEO of the Board could have intervened, that also did not happen.'

The Delhi Waqf Board vacuum since 2023

The Delhi Waqf Board is a statutory body mandated to identify, manage and protect waqf properties across the capital. Its non-constitution since 2023 has left an operational gap at exactly the moment property disputes have sharpened across the city. Without a functioning elected or nominated board, the executive — the CEO and, ultimately, the Central Government — carries heightened responsibility for safeguarding gazetted waqf assets.

Waqf property law in India traces back to the Waqf Act, 1995, which created the national framework for classifying and protecting such endowments. The 'waqf by user' doctrine — covering properties where long, continuous public use as a religious endowment substitutes for formal deed — is one of the more contested but well-established categories under that framework. Owaisi's point is blunt: if the Amendment Act already protects it, and the gazette entry is from 1977, a demolition order should never have gone unchallenged.

Why Owaisi's target is Rijiju — not just the Board

Kiren Rijiju, as the Union Minister, holds oversight authority over minority affairs and waqf governance at the Centre. Owaisi's framing places the intervention responsibility squarely with him: if the Delhi Waqf Board cannot act because it does not legally exist in its full form, the Centre cannot treat that vacancy as a shield. The CEO of the Board, Owaisi argues, also had the standing to act — and chose not to.

The broader pattern is familiar. Waqf property disputes in India routinely surface tensions between gazette records, physical possession, municipal orders and board functionality. When a board is dormant or unconstituted, gazetted properties become newly vulnerable — and political accountability becomes harder to pin down. Owaisi is trying to pin it down today.

With the reconstitution of the Delhi Waqf Board and any formal directive from Rijiju both outstanding, the Race Course Masjid case has become a live test of whether the system's stated legal protections mean anything on the ground.