New Delhi: The Waqf (Amendment) Bill got the parliamentary approval at 2.30 am Friday, with the Rajya Sabha passing it with 128 votes in favour and 95 against after a fiery 12-hour debate. It will become a law after the President gives assent to it.
The Upper House was finally adjourned at 4.02 am—after passing a statutory resolution on the imposition of President’s Rule in Manipur—to meet again at 11 am, in what Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar called a “rare occasion”. The bill was earlier passed in the Lok Sabha after nearly 12 hours of debate, with a 288-232 vote.
Replying to the debate on the bill, minority affairs minister Kiren Rijiju said that the law will benefit crores of Muslims.
Two prominent lawyers from the Opposition camp—Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi—stood out in their criticism of the bill. Singhvi from the Congress said that if it is challenged, there is a big chance that the judiciary will declare it unconstitutional.
“Your Hindu temples have so much property as well, what are you doing there?” MP Kapil Sibal, who is also the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, asked Thursday while speaking in Rajya Sabha.
The former Congress leader pointed out that while there has been discussion on how much land and how many properties across the country are owned by Waqf Boards, the total area under Hindu religious institutions in four states is ten lakh acres.
However, in a brief response, Rijiju challenged Sibal’s arguments as “confusing”. He objected to Sibal’s comparison of Waqf property to Hindu religious land, saying, “Waqf property isn’t religious property. Waqf property is civil.”
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also pointed out that in the states that Sibal mentioned, the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments are monitored and run by government-appointed people.
“In fact, Hindu pilgrims have started feeling that only our temples are being completely controlled by the government and government-appointed men,” she said.
Sibal pointed out that Waqf Board is a statutory board, and most nominees were of the government. “MPs, judges of Supreme Court and high courts, civil servants were there,” he explained.
“So if these were government appointments, then who was doing wrong deeds? Why did you supersede it…Then why did you bring in this provision? If a mistake was happening, it was happening by the mutawalli (superintendent of the waqf). The mutawalli would crack a deal within the waqf, because of which this mismanagement used to happen. You should have fixed that,” he asserted.
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‘Bill sides with encroachers’
Sibal went on to object to the introduction of the Limitation Act 1963 to waqf properties. The bill repeals Section 107 of the 1995 Act, which exempted waqf boards from the 12-year limitation period to file a claim for reclaiming encroached properties.
“You’re siding with the encroachers…What sort of a provision is this? Are you protecting Waqf property or encroachments?” he remarked.
Additionally, the Bill says that if any question arises as to whether any waqf property is a government property, the state government can designate an officer above the rank of Collector to conduct an enquiry and decide whether the property is a government property or not.
“And when he decides that this property is not waqf property, that cannot be challenged till he gives a final decision, so you can’t deal with that property,” Sibal pointed out. Under the 1995 law, these decisions were made by the Waqf Tribunal.
Sibal further challenged the government’s reasoning that the decision of the Waqf Tribunal is final and cannot be appealed against.
“If the Waqf Tribunal’s decision is final, then the civil court does not have the right to challenge it. This is also present in the Hindu Endowments Act, and it makes the management’s decision final,” Sibal explained.
“So you have no objections if the management’s decision in Hindu endowments is final, but if the tribunal’s decision is final here (in the case of Waqfs), you have an objection,” he added.
‘We’re not scaring the Muslims’
Rijiju addressed a few concerns raised by the Opposition members through the course of the debate. He referred to objections to the provision that individuals must show or demonstrate that they have been practicing Islam for at least five years to establish a waqf.
“Everybody asked how to decide who is a Muslim. All of us sitting here, some people can be atheists, but all of us have written our religions, some have written Buddhism, or Christian, or Hindu or Muslim or Parsi. How is this decided? It’ll happen the same way. This is not an issue to be tensed about,” he asserted, leading to an uproar by the members of the Opposition.
“We’re not scaring the Muslims, you are scaring them and trying to push them out of the mainstream,” he said. “In the future, this Bill would not disadvantage even one Muslim. In fact, crores of poor Muslims will be benefited.”
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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