A joint parliamentary committee has voted in favour of 14 alterations to the draft version of the Waqf Amendment Bill, which had been tabled in the Lok Sabha in August last year and seeks to make 44 contentious changes to the way Muslim charitable properties are managed in the country.
The 14 alternations include distinguishing between the mandatory two non-Muslim members – as specified in the original draft of the bill – and nominated ex-officio members (Muslim or non-Muslim).
This means waqf councils, whether at state or pan-India levels, will have at least two, and possibly more (if the nominated ex-officio members are also not Muslim) members not from the Islamic faith.
Another key change is directing an officer nominated by the concerned state to determine if a property is ‘waqf’. In the original draft this decision was left to the District Collector.
A third change is establishing that the law will not apply retrospectively, so long as the property in question is already registered. To this point, Congress leader and JPC member Imran Masood raised a red flag, noting an estimated 90 per cent of waqf properties are not, in fact, registered.
READ | Waqf Amendment Bill Cleared By JPC, 14 Amendments Approved
These changes, and the 11 others, were proposed by members from the ruling BJP, including Lok Sabha MPs Nishikant Dubey, Tejasvi Surya and Aparajita Sarangi.
Among the other 11 is a change – put forward by Mr Surya – specifying that anybody wishing to donate land must “show or demonstrate that she/he is practicing Islam for at least five years” and also acknowledge “…there is no contrivance involved in the dedication of such property”.
Overall, MPs from the ruling party and those allied to it made 23 proposals to alter the Waqf (Amendment) Bill. MPs from the opposition made 44 proposals, none of which were accepted.
NDTV Explains | Women, Non-Muslims, Council Can’t Claim Land: Waqf Changes
But the opposition’s proposals were rejected by a 10:16 vote after committee members voted on party lines; the JPC has 16 MPs from the BJP or allied parties and only 10 from the opposition.
Voting to confirm acceptance of the 14 changes will take place January 29, and the final report will be submitted by January 31, sources told NDTV.
The committee had originally been asked to file the report by November 29 but that deadline was extended to February 13, the final day of the Budget Session.
Changes to the Waqf laws, sources told NDTV earlier, are meant to empower Muslim women who “suffered” under the old law. However, critics, including Trinamool leader Kalyan Banerjee, and AIMIM boss Asaduddin Owaisi (both JPC members), have called it a “direct attack on freedom of religion”.
READ | Opposition Targets Non-Muslims Provision In “Draconian” Waqf Bill
Mr Owaisi and the DMK’s Kanimozhi, meanwhile, also have argued it violates multiple sections of the Constitution, including Article 15 (the right to practice a religion of one’s choice) and Article 30 (the right to minority communities to establish and administer their educational institutions).
The 1995 Wakf Act was passed to regulate ‘auqaf’ (assets donated and notified as Waqf) by a ‘wakif’ (the person who dedicates the property). The legislation was last amended in 2013.
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