Parliament’s Joint Committee on Waqf (amendment) Bill 2024 has entered the last round of deliberations, and the members have been given 48 hours to submit their amendments to the legislation. The panel will spend two days going through the 44 clauses of the Bill.
According to informed sources, the report on the controversial Bill is expected to be tabled in the first part of the Budget session of Parliament. The government, the sources said, wanted to move the Bill at the earliest keeping in mind the Bihar Assembly polls scheduled for later this year. The BJP has reached out to all its allies. JD(U) leader and Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh had defended the Bill in the Lok Sabha, when the government introduced it on August 8 last year. He had argued that it was aimed at bringing transparency in the functioning of the Waqf Board and not an attempt to interfere with the running of mosques. The TDP had expressed reservations and strongly argued that the Bill should be sent to a joint committee for further scrutiny.
The panel will meet on January 24 and 25 for clause-by-clause discussion. The members have been asked to submit their amendments by January 22. These amendments will be then circulated among the panel, giving them just 48 hours to study the proposed amendments to raise their objections.
The panel is in Kolkata to meet the West Bengal Waqf Board and will be in Lucknow on Tuesday for further deliberations. There was a demand from the members that the panel should visit Jammu and Kashmir which has the largest minority population in the country. But with a tight schedule ahead, the tour is unlikely to be scheduled.
The panel, constituted in August last year, has had 34 meetings in Delhi. It has met Waqf Board representatives from more than 12 States.
(With inputs from Devesh K. Pandey)
Published – January 20, 2025 08:28 pm IST
