Cabinet approves changes in Waqf Bill, accepts 14 amendments of JPC; Will the bill be passed in the budget session?

The Cabinet has approved the proposed changes in the Waqf (Amendment) Bill. It includes the amendments recently suggested by the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).

Now this bill will be introduced in Parliament for discussion and passage in the second part of the budget session, which will run from March 10 to April 4. Many top BJP leaders have claimed that the bill is likely to be passed during the budget session itself.

14 amendments accepted

Sources said that the Cabinet accepted 14 amendments suggested by the Joint Parliamentary Committee headed by Jagdambika Pal in a meeting held on February 19. In the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, the government has proposed 44 changes in the laws governing the Central and State Waqf Boards.

These proposals include the nomination of non-Muslim and (at least two) women members in the Waqf Board, due to which the opposition strongly opposed these amendments. The bill was referred to the JPC in August 2024 after it was introduced in the Lok Sabha by Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju.

The JPC had submitted a 655-page report.

The JPC submitted its 655-page report to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on January 30 and suggested several amendments to the Waqf Bill. Opposition members expressed their disagreement with these amendments. The report was tabled in Parliament on February 13 amid uproar and walkout by opposition parties.

The major amendments in the bill include renaming the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024 as the 'Integrated Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency, and Development Bill', including a member from the Muslim OBC community in state waqf boards, protecting women's inheritance rights and uploading details of all waqf properties on a central portal within six months.

The JPC report contained suggestions made by BJP members. Opposition members had termed it unconstitutional and alleged that the move would ruin the Waqf Boards.

BJP members had stressed that the bill introduced in the Lok Sabha in August last year would try to bring modernity, transparency, and accountability in the management of Waqf properties. The committee accepted all the amendments proposed by the BJP members and rejected the amendments of the opposition members.

The opposition had accused the government.

After the JPC report on the Waqf Bill was presented in Parliament, the opposition alleged that their dissent notes had been removed from the report and it should be withdrawn and sent back to the committee. The government had rejected this allegation and said that no dissent note has been removed and the opposition is doing vote bank politics in this matter.

The Lok Sabha Speaker allowed the dissent notes to be added as an annexure to the JPC report. Earlier in the Lok Sabha, Home Minister Amit Shah had said that opposition MPs can register their objections and according to parliamentary traditions, these can be included in the report. BJP has no objection to this.