New Delhi: “If the courts rule against us and deem it illegal, we will remove it ourselves. The administration will not have to go through any trouble or inconvenience,” says Maulana Shahid Ali, the mutawalli (manager) of Madarsa Islamia Zia-Ul-Uloom, located in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district.Speaking to The Wire on October 10, Ali was reacting to a seven-day ultimatum issued by the local administration directing him to vacate the premises housing a mosque and several permanent commercial shops, or face forced eviction in the form of demolition.The office of the tehsildar of Laharpur in Sitapur – a district adjoining the state capital, Lucknow – issued the eviction notice dated October 5 to Ali. The notice recalled that on May 15, the tehsildar court of Laharpur had passed a final order ruling that permanent shops built on a portion (0.0318 hectares out of a total 0.194 hectares) of graveyard land in Ahmedabad village constituted illegal encroachments. The order directed the occupants to clear the illegal constructions from plot number 541, free the land, and hand over its physical possession to the Gram Sabha within seven days of receiving the notice.“If you do not voluntarily remove your occupation/construction from the said land within the aforementioned seven-day period, then after the expiry of the stipulated period, your illegal occupation/construction will be forcibly removed by the administration without any further notice,” warned revenue inspector Tambaur, Sunder Lal Solanki, in the notice.He added that all execution expenses incurred during the clearance drive, alongside the ordered compensation amount, would be recovered from the management as arrears of land revenue.“In such a case, you will be solely responsible for any damage or consequences arising and will also be liable for other legal action as per law,” the notice stated.Ownership and jurisdictional status of the plot remains embroiled in a complex legal battleAccording to the district administration, official revenue records register the land in question as kabristan (graveyard) land. Ali said that the main structure erected on the site is a functional mosque with around 12 commercial shops constructed below it, while the madrasa, dating back to 1918, operates in the immediate vicinity. There were a total of 24 shops on the premises, he added.The administration’s aggressive push for demolition comes even as the underlying ownership and jurisdictional status of the plot remains embroiled in a complex legal battle before the Allahabad high court. Ali said that the site was a registered Waqf property, a contention denied by the state government. It has maintained that the land was a state property being managed by the Land Management Committee.Ever since the matter came up, first in the form of eviction and demolition notices in January this year, Ali has approached the court twice. In the recent instance, he had moved a petition before the high court under Article 227 of the constitution, challenging the tehsildar’s May 15 eviction order on the grounds that it was passed in a hasty and premeditated manner without due process.Ali submitted in his petition that the property is an old kabristan. He said that even after the abolition of the zamindari system, the land continued to exist as a graveyard. Although ownership formally vested in the state, it remained reserved specifically as a kabristan. Because its essential nature continued unabated without causing any harm to its primary users – members of the local Muslim community – there was no valid occasion to initiate summary eviction proceedings under Section 67 of the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code, 2006, rendering the administrative action legally vitiated.Ali also argued that the tehsildar had operated in disregard of directions previously issued by the high court in April 2026. At that time, the high court had quashed two earlier administrative orders passed in January and February, which had ordered eviction and imposed monetary damages of Rs 62,930 along with execution expenses of Rs 10,000 against Ali.On the other hand, the local Nagar Panchayat of Ahmedabad submitted before the high court that there was no procedural infirmity or illegality in the tehsildar’s May 15 order. Counsel for the local body argued that the property was not formally entered as Waqf in the official register of the Waqf Board, making action under Section 67 of the Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code, 2006, fully legal. The revenue court, it argued, possessed absolute statutory power to exercise eviction powers since the land fell within the domain of the Nagar Panchayat and the state government.Observing that the dispute required detailed judicial consideration, Justice Syed Qamar Hasan Rizvi had passed an interim order on June 4, directing that “status quo in respect of the nature and possession of property, as exists today, shall be maintained by the parties, till the next date of listing.”The matter was subsequently heard on August 4, when the high court took on record the state’s counter affidavit and application seeking dismissal of Ali’s petition, though no substantive order was pronounced.However, in issuing the latest October 5 notice, the revenue inspector quoted the high court’s June 4 order, interpreting it to mean that the judicial stay on status quo automatically lapsed following the conclusion of the August 4 hearing. The notice alleged that despite the expiry of the status quo timeline, the management had wilfully failed to clear the illegal occupation.‘We all know what the atmosphere and situation in Uttar Pradesh is today’Ali strongly disputed the administration’s interpretation, stating that pasting an eviction notice directly onto the mosque gate while the matter remains sub-judice appeared wholly inappropriate. “This is contempt of court,” Ali remarked. “We will abide by whatever the judiciary decides. The matter is currently before the high court, and if required, we can approach the Supreme Court. Once we have exhausted all legal options and if we are ultimately deemed illegal by the highest court, we will carry out the eviction ourselves.”When asked why he believed the property was singled out for action, Ali expressed deeper anguish over the political climate in the Adityanath-ruled state: “We all know what the atmosphere and situation in Uttar Pradesh is today. Why Muslims are being targeted, why mosques are being targeted and what the ultimate objective behind this is.”He was referring to the numerous instances where the state government has taken steps to demolish or seize properties belonging to the religious minority or housing their places of worship or commercial centres, deeming such structures as illegal encroachments.Defending the move, Laharpur tehsildar Manish Tripathi in a statement to the media said that the plot, recorded as a graveyard in state revenue records, had been unlawfully encroached upon by building commercial shops and constructing a mosque directly above them.Sitapur District Magistrate Raja Ganpati confirmed to reporters that a formal notice had been served requiring the occupants to voluntarily vacate the encroached land within seven days. “Protecting government land is the primary responsibility of the government and the district administration. We will take all necessary legal action required to clear the encroachment,” the DM said.The dispute originally began when Ali was issued a notice on December 18, 2025. Following his written reply, the tehsildar passed an adverse order on January 7, 2026, ordering eviction and imposing pecuniary damages. Ali’s initial appeal was dismissed by district revenue authorities on February 20, prompting him to petition the high court.In his first plea, Ali submitted that the management of the institution is formally registered with the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board under Waqf No. 279 and was duly uploaded onto the Union government’s UMEED portal in 2025. He argued that because the site is a registered Waqf property, exclusive adjudicatory jurisdiction rests solely with the Uttar Pradesh Waqf Tribunal under Sections 54 and 85 of the Waqf Act, 1995, thereby barring revenue courts from exercising summary jurisdiction under Section 67 of the State Revenue Code.Moreover, the property falls within the urban municipal limits of Nagar Panchayat Tambaur, which had historically assessed municipal taxes on the structures and granted formal permissions for repairs, rendering rural Gram Sabha revenue actions legally inapplicable.When the high court quashed the initial eviction orders in April, it specifically noted that revenue officials had failed to decide the threshold questions regarding maintainability, jurisdiction, and Waqf registration. The high court then remanded the matter back to the tehsildar with clear instructions to decide the jurisdictional objections afresh after affording a proper hearing.Following the tehsildar’s re-issuance of eviction orders on May 15, the mosque management returned to the high court, arguing that the revenue officer had hastily passed the order while ignoring the specific terms of the remand.Ali’s counsels pointed to a major contradiction in the state’s stand: if the land is treated strictly as gram sabha land, there was no legal cause to implead the urban nagar panchayat; conversely, if treated as municipal land, authorities were bound to proceed exclusively under relevant municipal laws.Documents on record show that the nagar panchayat had long recognised the physical existence of the structures, assessed and collected municipal taxes, and formally granted permissions for structural repairs and renovations. Having extended long-standing official recognition, Ali argued, state authorities cannot suddenly reverse stance and arbitrarily declare the long-standing structures to be illegal encroachments.Omar Rashid is an independent journalist.