NEW DELHI: Entertaining a PIL alleging non-enumeration of waqf properties worth lakhs of crores of rupees, resulting in their misuse and illegal transfer to builders, the Supreme Court has sought responses from the minority affairs ministry, all states and waqf bodies . Petitioner-advocates Rauf Rahim and Ali Asghar Rahim presented startling statistics before a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and K M Joseph. They said in West Bengal , the value of Shia waqf properties was around Rs 5,424 crore and that of Sunni waqf was Rs 13,126 crore.In Tamil Nadu , Shia waqf properties were valued at Rs 688 crore while that of Sunni waqf was Rs 99,311 crore. And yet, neither the states nor the waqf bodies had prepared a list of properties, or their current usage, they alleged. The petitioners said the value of waqf properties in other states would be similar or much higher. And yet, no waqf board or state had complied with Section 4(1A) of the Waqf Act, which came into effect on November 1, 2013.The law mandated every state government to maintain a list of waqf properties after conducting a survey within one year from the 2013 Act coming in to force.After more than five years, no such survey of waqf properties has been carried out, they said. The petitioners told the SC that Section 4(1) of the Act made it obligatory for a state government to appoint a ‘survey commissioner of waqf’ and as many additional survey commissioners as necessary to enumerate waqf properties. This too had not been implemented, they said.“It has been reliably learnt that proper records of waqf properties are not maintained by the boards and several such properties have been illegally transferred by waqf board officials who are acting in concert with builders/developers by destroying and/or fudging records,” the petitioners alleged.Requesting the court to order enumeration of waqf board properties within six months, the petitioners said the survey for this purpose should indicate the list of properties which have been transferred and/or alienated in the past four decades by way of lease, sale or tenancy. “Waqf boards across the country are already taking huge amounts as waqf contribution (up to 7%) and yet are not following statutory requirement of surveying and enumerating the waqf properties,” they said.Because of this, several tenancies of waqf properties were constantly changing hands at the whims and fancies of muttawallis/waqf board officials who often conspired among themselves to make unlawful gains, they added. “Waqf estates across the country have lost crores to unscrupulous management and officials of waqf boards in this manner and valuable properties have been/are transferred by creating new tenancies for a paltry sum under the nomenclature of development/donation,” the PIL said.