Waqf Bill In Parliament: The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Thursday presented its report on the Waqf Amendment Bill, 2024 in Rajya Sabha, which triggered a massive uproar by opposition leaders, who alleged that their dissent notes have been excluded from the final report submitted in the House. The chaos by opposition leaders led to the adjournment of the house today, which was also the last day of the first half of the Budget Session. The JPC report was tabled by BJP member Medha Vishram Kulkarni, a member of the panel.

Opposition members flagged the "high-handedness" of the government and accused the government of "crushing" their views and dissent in an arbitrary fashion. Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, demanded that the JPC report be taken back unless it includes dissent notes by the Opposition MPs, terming the JPC report "anti-constitutional and anti-democratic".

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Kharge's direct charges, however, were rejected by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju who claimed that there was no truth in the allegations as the dissent notes were attached in the report's appendix. "These are false allegations. There is no truth in it. There has been no violation of rule," Rijiju said, while also asking the Opposition MPs not to mislead the House.

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Later, the JPC report was tabled in Lok Sabha, where similar scenes were witnessed with opposition leaders raising slogans and staging a walkout. Responding to the allegations, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the government has no opposition if dissent notes of the Opposition are added to the JPC report.

"Some members of the Opposition have raised objections that their dissent notes have not been fully included in the report. On behalf of my party, I would like to request that the disputes of the opposition be included in the appropriate procedure of the parliamentary process; my party has no objection to this," Amit Shah said.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla also said that he has included all the dissent notes after meeting with the opposition leaders. "Whatever issues were raised by the members of the Waqf Board who met with me, I have included them in the annexure," Birla said.

Birla's remarks came after AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said that the dissent notes were not included initially in the report, but were added after he along with some other opposition leaders met Om Birla and discussed the issue with him.

"Today, a group of Lok Sabha MPs, which included A Raja, Kalyan Banerjee, Imran Masood, Mohammad Jawed, Gaurav Gogoi, and me, went to meet the Speaker. We told him that many pages and paragraphs of our dissent notes have been redacted from the JPC report. He was kind enough to ask the Secretary-General to include from our dissent notes whatever the rules permitted," Owaisi said.

"Later, we sat in the Parliamentary library and included most of the redacted pages in the report, which will be presented in the Lok Sabha at 2 pm. The paragraphs that expressed aspersions on the working of the committee were not included since they were against the rules," Owaisi added.

The report of the joint committee of Parliament on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill was submitted to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on January 30. The panel had adopted by a majority vote its report that contained changes suggested by members of the ruling BJP, prompting the opposition to dub the exercise an attempt to destroy Waqf boards. The Joint Committee of Parliament on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill adopted the report on the draft legislation by a 15-11 majority vote.

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The Waqf Act of 1995, enacted to regulate Waqf properties, has long been criticised for issues such as mismanagement, corruption, and encroachments. The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, aims to address these challenges by introducing reforms such as digitisation, enhanced audits, improved transparency, and legal mechanisms to reclaim illegally occupied properties.


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