 "Waqf Parliamentary panel")
The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), led by the chairman of the committee Jagdambika Pal, will present its report on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, to Parliament on Monday during the ongoing Budget session.
According to the List of Business, BJP MP from Uttar Pradesh Jagdambika Pal, along with BJP MP from Bihar Sanjay Jaiswal, will table the report (in both Hindi and English), accompanied by the evidence records that guided the committee’s conclusions.
Last week on Thursday, Pal presented the committee’s final report on the bill to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
“We have adopted the report and the amended revised bill. For the first time, we have included a section stating that the benefits of Waqf should go to the marginalised, poor, women, and orphans. Tomorrow, we will present this report to the Speaker,” Pal shared with news agency ANI.
“We had 44 clauses before us, out of which amendments were proposed by members in 14 clauses. We conducted a majority vote, and these amendments were then adopted,” Pal said.
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The JPC approved the draft report and amended bill on January 29, 2024. However, opposition leaders filed dissent notes against the report. The JPC had previously cleared the Waqf Bill 1995, incorporating 25 amendments across 14 clauses and sections.
Opposition dissent
The Bill proposes 44 amendments to the Waqf laws that govern the management of Muslim charitable properties in the country. However, the opposition’s proposed amendments were rejected after a party-line vote by committee members.
The committee comprises 16 MPs from the BJP and allied parties, while only 10 MPs represent the opposition.
AIMIM leader and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi accused the committee of deleting parts of his dissent note on the JPC report. He claimed the removed sections merely “stated facts”.
“I had submitted a detailed dissent note to JPC against Waqf Bill. It is shocking that parts of my note were redacted without my knowledge. The deleted sections were not controversial, they only stated facts,” Owaisi said on X.
In August 2024, the Union government referred the Waqf Amendment Bill, which calls for a more diverse composition of the Central Waqf Council and state Waqf boards, to the JPC for further review after opposition objections.
The Budget session of Parliament, which began on January 31, will continue until April 4 in two phases. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2025 on Saturday, February 1.
[With agency inputs]
