Fourth meeting of JPC on Wakf Amendment Bill, know what happened?

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The fourth meeting of the joint parliamentary group on the Waqf Board was held on Friday and lasted for about 9 hours. There was a huge uproar in the Waqf meeting. During this meeting, there was a heated debate between Asaduddin Owaisi and BJP members. In front of the committee, Culture Ministry Secretary Arunesh Chawla and ASI DG Yudhvir Singh Rawat supported the bill and called it a necessary step.

These things were discussed in the Waqf meeting

  1. There was a discussion on calling the next meeting of JPC from 17 to 20 September, but no final decision could be taken, a notification regarding the date for the next meeting of the committee will be issued.
  2. By Friday evening, the committee had received more than 13.5 lakh emails containing suggestions.
  3. On behalf of the Ministry of Culture, the Department of Archaeology presented details of disputes with Waqf over 53 properties in 5 states.
  4. The 5 states in which ASI gave details of 53 disputed sites before the committee include Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan.
  5. ASI has asked for some time before the committee to provide details of disputed properties in the rest of the states of the country.
  6. These 53 are the disputed sites which are protected by the Archaeological Department on behalf of the Ministry of Culture, while the Waqf claims ownership over them, due to which there are disputes at many places.
  7. The list of disputed properties includes Etala Masjid of Jaunpur, UP, Kotla and Mecca Masjid of Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, and Sallar Tomb of Bahraich, UP.
  8. ASI has expressed concern before the committee that no protected monument of national importance should violate the standards of ASI under the rights granted by Waqf. However, many such issues keep coming up every day, where someone starts running a madrasa, someone starts offering namaz and in many places, attempts are made to do photography and painting.
  9. The ASI cited before the committee an incident from the Madhya Pradesh High Court in which it put forth how the Jabalpur High Court had rejected the Waqf Board’s claim over the monuments in Burhanpur.
  10. The Madhya Pradesh High Court has quashed the order of the Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board claiming rights over some major historical monuments, including the tombs of Shah Shuja and Nadir Shah in Burhanpur district.
  11. In fact, in an order dated July 19, 2013, the Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board declared the tomb of Shah Shuja, the tomb of Nadir Shah, the Bibi Saheb Mosque, and a palace located in the fort of Burhanpur as its property.
  12. On Friday, a total of 7 people from the Zakat Foundation came to present their case before the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Waqf Bill. Former IAS Najeeb Jung and Syed Zafar Mahmood, Lieutenant General Zameeruddin Shah, Irfan Beg, and Udit Raj appeared before the committee.
  13. According to sources, in a meeting organized by Zakat Foundation, former Delhi LG Najeeb Jung said that the activities of the central government in the last 10 years have weakened the trust of the Muslims of the country. Najeeb Jung also said that if this Waqf bill comes from anywhere, then the trust of Muslims will be lost even more in the system.
  14. However, Joint Parliamentary Committee Chairman Jagdambika Pal, while defending the central government, said that this amendment bill is being made not to reduce the confidence of minorities but to increase their confidence. Pal also said that after the bill is passed, women, Bohras, and backward Muslims of Muslim society will be empowered.
  15. After the Zakat Foundation presented its views, the committee called a total of 9 people from the Telangana Wakf Board to the meeting and asked them to present their views. The chairman and CEO of the Telangana Wakf Board presented their views strongly.
  16. There was a huge uproar in the Waqf meeting on Friday. There was a heated debate between Owaisi and BJP members. During the meeting, BJP members raised the issue that there is no mention of Waqf in the Quran, and a BJP MP said that Waqf is a non-Islamic institution.
  17. The MPs of these opposition parties strongly opposed the inclusion of the collector and making a non-Muslim member a part of the Wakf Tribunal. Leaders like Asaduddin Owaisi, Sanjay Singh, Imran Masood, and Kalyan Banerjee were present among those who opposed the Wakf Bill from the opposition side. On the other hand, BJP MP Dilip Saikia was among those who argued in favor of the government.

The committee comprises 31 members

The government had constituted a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 9 August for the Waqf Amendment Bill. So far, three meetings of the JPC have been held and its fourth meeting was held on Friday. 21 members from the Lok Sabha and 10 members from the Rajya Sabha have been made part of the JPC.