‘One night to read 655 pages…: Opposition walks out after JPC report on Waqf Bill tabled in Lok Sabha

The Opposition staged a walkout after Joint Parliamentary Committee chairman and BJP MP Jagadambika Pal Thursday tabled the panel report on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024 in the Lok Sabha Thursday. 

"One night to read the 655-page report... We had hardly any time to present our objections. If you check the minutes of the meetings, you will find that there was no clause-by-clause discussion. We have been all part of many JPCs, and clause-by-clause discussion is most important, but it was bypassed. Under whose influence is the chairman acting? In protest to this, we staged a walkout today," Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi said after the Opposition walkout. 

Committee member and AAP MP Sanjay Singh said, "It is disappointing that the Opposition's dissent notes have not been included in the report... This is just the beginning. Soon, they will bring a bill to possess the lands of gurdwaras, temples and churches and give this land to their capitalist friends."

Earlier in the day, the report was tabled in the Rajya Sabha amid uproar from the Opposition. The Opposition leaders claimed that their dissent note was omitted from the JPC report.

However, AIMIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi, ahead of the tabling of the bill in the Lok Sabha, said only the paragraphs that expressed aspersions on the working of the committee were not included since they were against the rules. "Today, a group of Lok Sabha MPs, which included A Raja, Kalyan Banerjee, Imran Masood, Mohammad Jawed, Gaurav Gogoi, and me, went to meet the Speaker. We told him that many pages and paragraphs of our dissent notes have been redacted from the JPC report. He was kind enough to ask the Secretary-General to include from our dissent notes whatever the rules permitted."

"Later, we sat in the Parliamentary library and included most of the redacted pages in the report, which will be presented in the Lok Sabha at 2 pm... The paragraphs that expressed aspersions on the working of the committee were not included since they were against the rules," he stated. 

Later, the proceedings of the House were adjourned till March 10 after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Income Tax Bill. Parliament will reconvene for the second phase of the Budget Session, which will continue until April 4, 2025.

The report was presented to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on January 30, 2025. The JPC on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill adopted the draft report and the amended revised bill on January 29. However, opposition leaders submitted their dissent notes on the report.

The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, aims to address these challenges by introducing reforms such as digitisation, enhanced audits, improved transparency, and legal mechanisms to reclaim illegally occupied properties.