New Delhi, Sep 2 - The government has rejected a recommendation of the Sachar Committee to create Indian Wakf Services on the lines of the civil services to appoint officers to boards that manage Muslim religious and community properties.

A Right To Information (RTI) application was filed to know the reasons behind the rejection of the recommendation by the minority affairs ministry, but it has refused to reply.

'We had filed an RTI application to know the reasons for rejecting the recommendation of the Sachar Committee, but the ministry refused to give an answer for not creating Wakf services saying that it does not come under the purview of the RTI Act,' Zafar Mahmood, president of the Zakat Foundation of India, told IANS. The NGO works for issues concerning the Muslim community.

A senior official in the ministry told IANS on condition of anonymity: 'The government has rejected it as to create these services is a complicated process. Also, the Wakf Boards across the country are in a pathetic condition.'

According to the Wakf Act of 1995, only an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer or an officer appointed by Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) can be appointed as CEO of the central and state wakf boards and the officer has to be a Muslim.

However, the Sachar Committee appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to study and prepare a report on the social, economic and educational status of Indian Muslims found that there was an acute dearth of Muslim officers in the country.

The Sachar report said 'where a CEO is not high ranking in the hierarchy of the state bureaucracy, the interests of the Wakf board often suffer'.