UNDERVALUED: A Jhautala Road Wakf property and the Shaw Wallace office (below) are rented out

Wakf means property dedicated to the community, and the Wakf Board in each state oversees distribution of properties donated by rich Muslims among the poor. Over the decades, these boards became nests of corruption, but the community, touchy about the state interfering in intra-faith matters, thwarted outside control. In 1995, when Parliament passed the Wakf Act, no state dared to step into the affairs of the boards. The exception was West Bengal which, armed with the 1995 law, superseded the board. It also instituted a judicial commission of inquiry under Justice G.R. Bhattacharya. The commission's 1,355-page report, tabled in the state Assembly last week, is an authoritative expose of corruption resulting from a religious elite managing public funds.

The commission pointed its finger at Hamimul Hoda, a migrant labourer from Bihar who had worked his way up to the Wakf Board as a member and had three successive runs until its dissolution. By then, Hoda, together with Asadur Rahman, Wakf Board commissioner, had spun a web of corruption in sale, lease and renting of many of the 8,044 properties under the board's management.

"We must expose the nexus of politicians, promoters and criminals." Mohammed Salim, Minority welfare minister

For example, an 11,000-sq ft plot in Kolkata's prime Shakespeare Sarani area, where the market price rules at Rs 2,800 per sq ft, was gifted away to an obscure firm for a rent of Rs 6,000 per month and a Rs 2.5-lakh donation to a Muslim hostel. The lease of liquor major Shaw Wallace and Company's office on Bankshall Street, close to Writers' Buildings, was renewed in 1984 by the duo's intervention for Rs 32,000 a month; realtors put the rent at Rs 6 lakh.

Though the Government took prompt action on receipt of the report-the Kolkata Police arrested Hoda last month-the ruling CPI(M) is in a tight spot after two of its leaders were named by the commission. They are former Wakf minister and Lok Sabha member Mahaboob Zahedi and CPI(M) State Committee member Mohammed Nizamuddin. Hoda's proximity to Speaker Hashim Abdul Halim is also well known. There was also a suspicious spurt in Wakf transactions after the Left Front came to power in 1977. In the pre-Left period, only 14 properties were leased out or transferred for "development". Between 1977 and 1995, there were 123 such cases. The Opposition claims the scandal involves over Rs 1,000 crore.

Mohammed Salim, the state minority welfare and development minister, who tabled the report, says the Marxists hadn't delved into Wakf matters in the past as it concerned religion, "but now we must expose the nexus of criminals, promoters and politicians". Though doubts persist on how much exposure is possible in a state-level inquiry, the initiative taken by the Government by first dissolving the Wakf Board and then putting it under judicial scrutiny may help other states shed their squeamishness about intervening in corruption in the name of God.