Lok Sabha passes motion appointing 21 members to Joint Parliamentary Panel, including 10 MPs from Rajya Sabha

New Delhi: A 31-member joint parliamentary committee was formed on Friday, the last day of the budget session, to look into the controversial Waqf Board amendment. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju announced the members of the committee in both the Houses.

In the Lok Sabha, the committee’s members include BJP MPs Jagdambika Pal, Nishikant Dubey and Dilip Saikia, along with INDIA bloc leaders Gaurav Gogoi (INC), Kalyan Banerjee (TMC) and A Raja (DMK) besides AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi from the Lok Sabha. From the Rajya Sabha, the committee’s members include BJP’s Radha Mohan Das Agrawal and Gulam Ali, besides Congress’s Syed Naseer Hussain, Y Vijayasai Reddy of YSRCP and AAP’s Sanjay Singh.

When the Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, several opposition members opposed it and asked the government to send the legislation for wider consultation. Rijiju, while introducing the Bill, said that the Waqf Boards had been hijacked by the mafia.

The BJP’s allies too felt that the bill needed to be scrutinised. While the allies supported the bill in Parliament, behind the scenes they urged the government not to push through the legislation without a broader discussion. The Lok Janshakti Party was the only BJP ally to ask for the bill to be sent to a committee, while the JDU wanted the legislation to be implemented.

The Indian Union Muslim League, which has four parliamentarians – three in the Lok Sabha and one in the Rajya Sabha, complained that it was not given any representation in the committee. The party’s Lok Sabha MP, ET Mohammed Basheer, met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to lodge a complaint and also wrote to the prime minister.

However, the bill has found support from a section of Muslims – a delegation from the All India Sufi Sajjadanashin Council (AISSC) met Rijiju on Tuesday to express support for the bill. On Friday, they went to Parliament to thank him for introducing the bill.

The legislation – United Waqf Act Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development (UMEED) Act, 1995 – which seeks to amend the Waqf Act, 1995, proposes to take away the power of a Waqf Board to declare a property as ‘Waqf property’ by repealing Section 50 of the existing legislation. Waqf properties will have to be registered on a portal and go through the mentioned procedure for mutation as per the tax laws before a property is registered as waqf property under the proposed legislation.

The 21 members of the Lok Sabha included in the panel are:

1. Jagdambika friend

2. Nishikant Dubey

3. Tejasvi Surya

4. Sarangi device

5. Sanjay Jaiswal

6. Dilip Saikia

7. Abhijit Gangopadhyay

8. Aruna DK

9. Gaurav Gogoi

10. Imran Masood

11. Mohammed Jawed

12. Mohibbullah Nadvi

13. Kalyan Banerjee

14. Andimuthu Raja

15. Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu

16. Dileshwar Kamait

17. Arvind Sawant

18. Suresh Mhatre

19. Naresh Mhaske

20. Arun Bharti

21. Asaduddin Owaisi

The 10 Rajya Sabha members are:-

1. Brij Lal

2. Medha Vishram Kulkarni

3. Gulam Ali Khatana

4. Radha Mohan Das Agarwal

5. Syed Naseer Hussain

6. Nadimul Haque

7. V. Vijaysai Reddy

8. MM Abdulla

9. Sanjay Singh

10. D. Veerendra Heggade