IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA LPA No.814 of 2007 S.NAJAF HAIDER RIZVI @ S.NAJAF HAIDER Versus THE STATE OF BIHAR &ORS ----------- For the appellant : Mr. Anil Kumar Roy, Advocate For the respondent no.3 : Mr. Shabbir Ahmad, Advocate ------- P R E S E N T Hon'ble the Chief Justice & Hon'ble Mr. Justice Kishore K. Mandal ------ Dated, the 18th July, 2008 Appeal suffers from delay of 23 days and for condonation thereof I.A.No.5655 of 2007 has been made. Even if we condone the delay for the reasons set out in the application, we are of the considered view that appeal has no merit and does not deserve to be admitted. 2. The powers and duties conferred upon the Chief Executive Officer under Section 25 of the Wakf Act, 1995 have to be exercised under the directions of the Board. The counsel would submit that the Board had become defunct and, therefore, this court in its order dated 7th of January, 2003 in the case of Ghulam Mohsin Vs. The State of Bihar & Ors (LPA No.1168/2002), conferred the powers of the Board upon the Chief Executive Officer (Mr. Anwar Alam Manzar) and, therefore, in his capacity as Chief Executive Officer, he was - 2 - competent to issue the orders dated 9th of March, 2005 and 5th of May, 2005. 3. We carefully perused the order dated 7th of January, 2003 passed by the Division bench in the case of Ghulam Mohsin. The Division Bench observed thus: “In these circumstances, it would be appropriate that until the rules are framed and the elections are held to constitute a Board in its true spirit within the meaning of Section 14, while accepting the suggestion of the State Counsel that there would be ad interim Board invested in the Joint Secretary, the Court would go further that the spirit of Section 14 be also incorporated. Fortunately the Legislative Council in Bihar has a Chairman who satisfies the basic requirement of both Section 23 and Section 14, that he is a Muslim, and he be considered to hold charge as an ad interim Board until a full fledged Board is returned within the meaning of the Act.” 4. It would be, thus, seen that by way of an ad hoc arrangement, this court on the suggestion of the State Counsel recorded that there would be ad interim Board invested in the Joint Secretary. The Court further went on to observe that the Chairman of the Legislative Council in Bihar satisfies the basic requirement of both Sections 23 and 14 and he may be considered to hold charge as an ad interim Board until a full fledged Board is returned within the meaning of Wakf Act, 1995. 5. There is no material whatsoever to show that the Chief Executive Officer Mr. Anwar Alam Manzar has been conferred powers of the Board by the State Government pursuant to the order - 3 - dated 07.01.2003. The Notification dated 26.05.2004 (Annexure-5 annexed with the supplementary affidavit dated 17.07.2008) does not indicate at all that the power of the Board has been conferred by way of an interim arrangement upon Mr. Anwar Alam Manzar. 6. The consideration of the matter by the Single Judge, thus, cannot be faulted. LPA is dismissed in limine. 7. This disposes of I.A.No.5655 of 2007 as well. R. M. Lodha, CJ Kishore K. Mandal, J. sunil