A waqf under the law of India
What the law asks of a waqf here, as the institutions administering awqaf here read it. The platform takes no view of its own.
India has a law of its own for awqaf, and a separate law of trusts and charities. Since 2025 the waqf law says that it does not apply to a trust, by whatever name called, made by a Muslim for a purpose like a waqf under another law. So a Muslim endowment can be carried into effect through a trust or another ordinary legal form instead of being registered with a State Waqf Board. What form fits a particular waqf, and whether that exclusion reaches it, is for the Operator’s counsel to say, not for this platform.
The rules an institution stands behind
Each rule decides what has to exist on paper before the platform counts property as held by a waqf. A rule for a state or province applies to a waqf there before a rule for the whole country. Rules apply only to the awqaf of the institution that recorded them.
IBF Education and Charitable Trust
India, the whole country
Copyright and educational content
- What the law asks
- Registration is left to the parties
- What has to exist before the property counts as held
- A written assignment signed by the owner before two witnesses. Registration with the Copyright Office only if either party requires it.
- What the passport says if nothing is registered
- Assigned by written agreement, signed before two witnesses. Not registered with the Copyright Office, as the law of India allows.
- The law it rests on
- Copyright Act, 1957, sections 18 and 19
- Whose reading this is
- The institution’s own reading, not yet confirmed by its counselRecorded on 16 September 2026
Real estate
- What the law asks
- A registered document is required
- What has to exist before the property counts as held
- The registered instrument, with its office, number and date.
- The law it rests on
- Registration Act, 1908, section 17(1)(a) and (b); Transfer of Property Act, 1882, sections 54 and 123
- Whose reading this is
- The institution’s own reading, not yet confirmed by its counselRecorded on 16 September 2026
Usufruct rightThe use of land or a building for a year or less
- What the law asks
- Registration is left to the parties
- What has to exist before the property counts as held
- The signed and witnessed handover. A registered document only if either party requires one.
- What the passport says if nothing is registered
- Not registered: the law of India leaves this to the parties, and neither required it.
- The law it rests on
- Registration Act, 1908: registration is not compulsory for a term of a year or less
- Whose reading this is
- The institution’s own reading, not yet confirmed by its counselRecorded on 16 September 2026
Usufruct rightThe use of land or a building for more than a year
- What the law asks
- A registered document is required
- What has to exist before the property counts as held
- The signed and witnessed handover, and a document giving the use for the term, registered with the Sub-Registrar.
- The law it rests on
- Registration Act, 1908, section 17(1)(d)
- Whose reading this is
- The institution’s own reading, not yet confirmed by its counselRecorded on 16 September 2026
Written down, still to be checked
These kinds of property have a rule waiting on somebody to check the law behind it. Nothing rests on them: until one is checked, the platform asks for the signed and witnessed documents Shariah requires, and a waqf’s passport says that no rule on registration is settled.
| Kind of property | What the rule says | The law it points to | Whose it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agricultural assets | A registered document is required | Registration Act, 1908, section 17; the land revenue and land reform laws of the state | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Cash | No registered document is required | None needed | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Contractual or economic right | No registered document is required | Transfer of Property Act, 1882, sections 130 and 131; Indian Contract Act, 1872 | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Cryptocurrency and blockchain-native assets | No registered document is required | No registration regime; Income-tax Act, 1961, sections 115BBH and 194S | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Databases and data rights | Registration is left to the parties | Copyright Act, 1957; Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Defined service capacity | No registered document is required | Indian Contract Act, 1872 | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Gold and precious metals | No registered document is required | Transfer of Property Act, 1882, section 123 | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Listed equity | No registered document is required | Depositories Act, 1996 | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Patent | A registered document is required | Patents Act, 1970, sections 68 and 69 | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Private company interest | A registered document is required | Companies Act, 2013, section 56 | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Shariah-compliant fund units | No registered document is required | The regulations of the Securities and Exchange Board of India that govern the fund | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Software | Registration is left to the parties | Copyright Act, 1957, sections 18 and 19 | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Sukuk | No registered document is required | The regulations of the Securities and Exchange Board of India that govern the instrument | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Trademark and brand rights | A registered document is required | Trade Marks Act, 1999, section 45 | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
| Usufruct rightOther property | No registered document is required | Indian Contract Act, 1872 | IBF Education and Charitable Trust |
Questions still open
These are put to counsel, and are not answered here. An answer becomes the rule of the institution whose counsel gave it, and appears above under that institution’s name.
Does that exclusion reach a waqf made by a deed of waqf, where a registered public charitable trust looks after it as nāẓir? Or is such a waqf inside the waqf law and registrable with the State Waqf Board?
The first awqaf here are made this way. Neither of them assumes that registration with a Board is needed, and neither relies on being outside it. Counsel’s answer settles which it is.
How is an electronic record, and the seal this platform puts on it on the Bitcoin blockchain, proved in an Indian court?
A waqf may one day have to be proved. The platform records each document by its fingerprint and seals it, so it matters what a court asks for before it will look at that.
Can the use of a building be given for a term, free of rent, without a registered document? For example, an owner lets a school use a building for five years for nothing.
If such an agreement gives a right to possession for the term, it may need registering like a lease. If it is only a permission, it can be withdrawn, and a waqf for a term cannot rest on something that can be withdrawn. Until this is answered, the first waqf of premises keeps a registered lease at one rupee a year.
For each kind of property not yet settled, is the law an Operator has cited the right one, and complete?
A rule marked as proposed is exactly that: written down so it can be checked, and not yet relied on.
Where a waqf takes money from the public
These arise only for a waqf that invites contributions. None is answered here, and no waqf on this platform takes money from the public in India today.
When contributions from the public are collected in an account in the Operator’s name and passed on to each waqf, does that make the Operator a payment aggregator under the Reserve Bank’s rules?
It decides whether the collecting account may be the Operator’s own, or must sit with a licensed payment company.
Is a contribution that is never repaid outside the law on unregulated deposits, including while it waits in that collecting account?
Money taken from the public and held can be treated as a deposit. Nothing given to a waqf is ever repaid, and the question is whether that is enough.
Is a standing cash waqf, which gives those who join it no return and no units, outside the law on collective investment schemes?
Money from many people, invested together, can fall under that law even where nobody expects a profit.
What is an Operator’s position on money from abroad?
Foreign contributions need the receiving institution to be registered. Until that is settled, a waqf here takes money only from residents of India, in rupees.
Is the Operator registered for tax relief on giving, what may a receipt say, and can it report from the payment company’s records?
The platform keeps no personal particulars, so receipts and tax reporting are the Operator’s, from the payment company’s records.
What do the Operator and the payment company each owe a contributor under the data protection law?
They hold the particulars. The platform holds none, which does not settle their duties.
Does a cash waqf open to the public fall within the waqf law or outside it, and do the Operator’s own objects allow it?
The answer decides how the waqf is set up before a single rupee is taken.
If you administer awqaf here
An institution records its own rules, for its own awqaf, on its own counsel’s advice, and they appear here under its name. An advocate’s opinion is recorded by the fingerprint of the signed opinion, with the advocate’s standing and firm. The opinion itself stays with the institution: the platform keeps no documents. How an institution joins, and how to reach us.