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The chairman will move a resolution before the house for the extension of the committee up to the last day of the upcoming budget session. Once the motion is moved by the Lok Sabha speaker, it will be put to vote by the House
Chairman of Joint Parliamentary Committee on Waqf bill Jagdambika Pal meets TMC MP and JPC member Kalyan Banerjee, outside Parliament, in New Delhi, on Tuesday. (PTI)
Acting on the demand of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opposition MPs, chairman Jagdambika Pal will on Thursday seek an extension for the tenure of the joint parliamentary committee (JPC) for the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024.
The opposition, on Wednesday, staged a walkout of the meeting demanding the extension. The Members of Parliament (MP) said the real stakeholders were not being invited to discuss the bill and that the committee was acting according to the agenda of the ruling party.
Following an argument on whether the report needs to be submitted as scheduled on November 29, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, too, made a submission before the chairman that the demand of the opposition was genuine. The committee adopted his suggestion to extend the term for the next session to discuss the bill further.
WHAT NEXT?
Pal will move a resolution before the house for the extension of the committee up to the last day of the upcoming budget session of Parliament. Once the motion is moved by the Lok Sabha speaker, it will be put to vote by the House. It is on the sense of the house that the committee will be given an extension as per the protocol.
After the meeting, DMK MP A Raja told News18, “We had a small walkout of the committee with the demand to extend the term of the committee. Much to our expectation, the chairman has agreed.”
Another MP from the panel, BJP’s Aparajita Sarangi said, “There was a huge uproar in the committee about the demand to extend the term of the panel. After the boycott of the opposition, we had a huge deliberation on the matter. Some of the ruling MPs also thought that more deliberation needs to be done and more stakeholders need to be called. We got a resolution ready. It will be moved by the honourable chairman on Thursday. We are hopeful that the committee will extend its term.”
This demand is largely acceptable to the opposition parties who then returned to the meeting.
THE JPC
The JPC committee on Wednesday held its 29th meeting in the presence of the chairman. The bill was referred to it by the house in the last monsoon session of Parliament. On August 9, the bill was referred to the JPC.
As per the data available, the committee has so far examined 13 Waqf boards and seven state representatives have come before the panel in Parliament.
So far, 42 organisations/stakeholders have appeared before the panel. The panel has undertaken two study tours. During the first study tour across states such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, the panel met 123 stakeholders. The second trip had to be cut short because of the opposition boycott and the team could only visit Guwahati and Bhubaneswar. The panel examined 16 stakeholders.
The committee, which had asked the public to give their opinion about the bill both online and through physical representation, has so far received 92.28 lakh emails and 4.99 lakh physical representations.
