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On Tuesday, the draft report will be shared with all members. Another meeting has been scheduled on January 29, during which the committee will adopt the report
The leaders at the meet; (right) Jagdambika Pal. (PTI)
Chaotic scenes were witnessed in Parliament as the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) wrapped up its process of amendments to the Waqf Amendment Bill 2024 in just an hour or two of its meeting on Monday. More than 450 amendments to the various clauses of the bill were submitted by members of the opposition and the ruling side.
Throughout the duration of the meeting, one could hear Trinamool Congress (TMC) Member of Parliament (MP) Kalyan Banerjee shout in loud voices against the chairman, Jagdambika Pal.
Around 12.45 pm, members from the opposition camp were seen coming out of the meeting and many, including Kalyan Banerjee, A Raja and Nasser Hussain, spoke in an animated tone.
Banerjee accused the chair of “shameless bias”. “All amendments were put to vote, and we were not given an opportunity to speak. The chairman was acting like a dictator, and we had no say. This committee should be called Jagdambika Pal committee and not the JPC,” Banerjee told CNN-News18.
Another opposition member, DMK MP A Raja, also accused the chairman of being deaf to the opposition’s requests. He went on to say that they will have to look for a legal route. “The chairman was sitting and moving the amendments and also passing the amendments. Everything was being done by him, and we were not even allowed to make our points. This is not how it will happen, and if required, we will take the legal route. My party, the DMK, and I will go to court against such legislation,” Raja told News18.
Defending the chairman and the merits of the bill, Dr Sanjay Jaiswal from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said, “The opposition has become so used to negative politics that they continue to oppose even a legislation which can benefit the poor and the deprived of the Muslim community.”
In Monday’s meeting, 14 amendments were approved by the JPC. Incidentally, all of these amendments were moved by members from the ruling side. AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi had moved 43 amendments, but each one of them was an amendment to scrap what the bill had proposed. It seemed like, along with Owaisi, other opposition MPs wanted to oppose the bill in its totality.
One of the provisions that the bill has now approved is that only a practising Muslim of at least five years can give his property for Waqf.
The constitution of the tribunal has also been changed and now, instead of two, the tribunal will have three members, of which one will have to be a Muslim scholar or somebody with knowledge of Muslim jurisprudence.
Opposition MPs had often expressed their reservations about the proposal of the collector being given overarching power. In some cases, many opposition MPs had said the collector cannot be a complainant and judge in the same matter. The amendment, which has now been revised, provides for an ex-officio person who can be appointed by the state government to oversee the Waqf matters.
“This was our last meeting ahead of the meeting to adopt the report. We cleared all amendments that were brought before us. It is completely incorrect that the opposition MPs call me names. I have given each one of them appropriate time and opportunity to raise the matter that they wanted to in a democratic manner,” Pal said.
After Monday’s meeting, the committee will send the recommendations and the amendments that have been passed to the Ministry of Law and Justice for its consideration. On Tuesday, the draft report will be shared with all members. Another meeting has been scheduled on January 29, during which the committee will adopt the report. It is during this meeting that MPs who want to submit their dissent notes to the report can do so and it will be attached with the approved report.
Sources say on January 30, the committee will submit its report to the Lok Sabha speaker for his final approval. After the approval by the speaker, the committee will lay the report in Parliament during the upcoming budget session.
