JPC report on Waqf bill tabled amid uproar

New Delhi: The report of the Joint Committee on Waqf (Amendment) Bill was tabled in both Houses of Parliament on Thursday with the Lok Sabha speaker allowing the submission of dissent notes in entirety as demanded by the opposition and Home Minister Amit Shah asserting the BJP had no objection to it.

Committee Chairman Jagdambika Pal had redacted parts of the dissent notes contending that they cast aspersions on the parliamentary panel and made personal allegations against him. The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha witnessed stormy scenes with opposition members trooping to the Wells of the respective Houses protesting against the “undemocratic” action of the committee chairman.

In the Rajya Sabha, BJP member Medha Kulkarni tabled the voluminous report amid protests by the opposition members. Later, she tabled a corrigendum to Appendix 5 of the report that deals with notes/minutes of dissent, prompting the opposition to claim victory. In the face of opposition protests in the Lok Sabha, Home Minister Shah said his party has no objection to attaching the notes of dissent to the report submitted by the opposition as per parliamentary practice.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said members of the Waqf committee had met him and discussed certain issues. “Those issues have been included in the annexure,” he said as opposition members staged a walkout. The Rajya Sabha witnessed chaos as Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju rejected the allegations by opposition MPs led by Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge that dissent notes were deleted from the report.

Congress member Syed Nasir Hussain accused Rijiju -- who is also the Union minority affairs minister -- of misleading the House. “My own dissent note has been redacted,” Hussain said. Later at a press conference in Parliament House complex, the Parliamentary Affairs minister said when the report was tabled in Rajya Sabha, some opposition MPs raised objections and claimed their dissent notes had been taken out. “I spoke to the JPC chairman, enquired about it from the secretariat and informed the Rajya Sabha that the report has been tabled along with annexures.

“In this, one thing has to be kept in mind that in the annexure and dissent note if any question is raised on the committee like casting an aspersion on the committee, which the chairman feels is not right, then the chairman has the power to remove it, not the report. It’s written in the rules,” Rijiju said. “The chairman, perhaps, used that power, which is as per the rules,” he said, adding, “Everything has happened as per the rules.” The report of the joint committee of Parliament on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill was submitted to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on January 30.