JPC clears amendments to Waqf bill; Oppn slams panel

This JPC is a farce. Why did the government send the bill to the JPC when everything was pre-decided? Kalyan Banerjee, Trinamool Congress MP

- Saubhadra Chatterji and Smriti Kak Ramachandran

NEW DELHI: The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) approved the Waqf (Amendments) bill by a majority on Monday (16 votes to 10), controversially rejecting all amendments put forth by members from opposition parties, and accepting those put forth by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies.

JPC chief and senior BJP lawmaker Jagdambika Pal claimed that "amendments adopted by the committee will make the law better and more effective."

One of the amendments, tabled by BJP's Nishikant Dubey, offers major relief to existing waqf properties. It says that the provision of "waqf by user" will remain applicable for current properties and can't be questioned on the grounds of the new law scrapping this. "Waqf by user" refers to a category where a property is acknowledged as waqf because it has been used for religious activities for some time, despite there being no official declaration of it or a registration as waqf.

"Provided that the existing waqf use by user properties registered on or before the commencement of Waqf (Amendment) Act 2024 as waqf by user will remain as waqf properties except that the property, wholly or in part, is in dispute or is a government property," Dubey's amendment said.