The Union Cabinet has cleared the 14 amendments to the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, proposed by the Joint Committee of Parliament (JCP), sources said Thursday.
The 14 amendments, approved by JCP on January 27, were proposed by NDA members who are part of the parliamentary panel examining the contentious Waqf Bill. The 44 amendments suggested by the Opposition members in the panel were rejected by the committee after the voting. These 44 amendments were against the changes planned in the Bill to the Waqf Act of 2013.
On Thursday, a source said the 14 changes to the Bill proposed by JCP were cleared by the Cabinet, and that the revised Bill is likely to be tabled in Parliament during the second half of the Budget session, which starts from March 10.
Among the 14 changes to the Waqf Bill approved by the committee are relaxation in the six-month window to register Waqf properties on a portal, replacing the district collector with a state government official to be the arbiter on whether a property is Waqf property or government land, and to have one member in the Waqf tribunal with “knowledge of Muslim law and jurisprudence”.
On January 27, when the proposed changes to the Bill were approved by the panel, NDA parties the Janata Dal(United) and Telegu Desam Party (TDP) were among those who proposed some of the amendments. Voting on the changes had seen a united NDA, including the JD(U), TDP, and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) all favouring the amendments — a signal that the parties are in favour of the Bill in the revised form after the amendments.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is confident of seeing the Bill through the voting in the House when it is tabled. With the BJP being below the majority mark in Lok Sabha with 240 members, the votes of 16 TDP members, 12 JD(U) members, and five LJP (RV) members will be crucial for the Bill to be passed. Other smaller NDA allies like the Rashtriya Lok Dal (two members), the Janata Dal Secular (two members), and the Apna Dal (S) (one member) will also play an important role on the day of voting once the Bill is tabled in Lok Sabha.
On February 13, Opposition parties in JCP had alleged that portions of dissent notes submitted by its MPs as members had been redacted, without their knowledge. Later the same day, the government agreed to restore some of the redacted parts, through a corrigendum to Appendix V of the JCP report.
