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Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) member and Congress MP Dr Syed Naseer Hussain on Tuesday strongly criticised the government over the Waqf Amendment Bill, alleging that the government is being pushed through without discussion or debate.
"The way the debate was supposed to be held in JPC, it was not held, nor was there a clause-to-clause discussion. The way this bill is being brought in a hurry shows that the government does not want to work on it seriously,"Hussain told ANI. He further added," The government does not want reforms to take place in Waqf institutions. The government is spreading wrong information about this bill all over the country..." Congress MP Pramod Tiwari said, "We (Congress) have a very clear stand on Waqf. When the JPC was formed, we had presented all our objections but they were not accepted there. When this (Waqf Amendment Bill) comes to the House, we will oppose it in the same way as we did in the JPC." Meanwhile, the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) has called for the amendments to the Waqf Act over land disputes in Kerala and urged political parties and legislators to adopt an unbiased and constructive approach to land issues, including Munambam in Kerala. The CBCI has said that certain provisions in the existing Central Waqf Act are inconsistent with the Constitution, and the Waqf Board in Kerala has invoked these provisions to declare the ancestral residential properties of more than 600 families in the Munambam region as Waqf land. In a statement released on Monday, the CBCI said that over the past three years, this issue has escalated into a complex legal dispute. It added that only a legal amendment can provide a permanent solution, and this must be recognized by the people's representatives. The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, also called the 'Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency, and Development (UMEED) Bill', aims to address key challenges by introducing reforms such as digitisation, enhanced audits, improved transparency, and legal mechanisms to reclaim illegally occupied properties. The Waqf Act of 1995, enacted to regulate Waqf properties, has long been criticised for issues such as mismanagement, corruption, and encroachments. (ANI)
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