NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government on Friday formed a 31-member Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Waqf Bill, which proposes as many as 40 amendments to the existing 1995 Act. Both Houses adopted a motion for nominating the members to the JPC.
The joint committee will submit its report to the House by the last day of the first week of next session of Parliament. An official communication stated that 21 members of the committee are from the Lok Sabha while the rest are from the Upper House.
The Lok Sabha MPs include Jagdambika Pal, Dr Nishikant Dubey, Tejasvi Surya, Aparajita Sarangi, Dr Sanjay Jaiswal, Dilip Saikia, Abhijit Gangopadhayay, DK Aruna, Gaurav Gogoi, Imran Masood, Dr Mohammad Jawed, Mohibbullah, Kalyan Banerjee, A Raja, Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu, Dileshwar Kamait, Arvind Sawant, Mahtre Balya Mama Suresh Gopinath, Naresh Ganpat Mhaske, Arun Bharti and Asaduddin Owaisi.
The Rajya Sabha adopted the motion and named 10 MPs — Brij Lal, Medha Vishram Kulkarni, Gulam Ali, Radha Mohan Das Agrawal (all BJP), Syed Naseer Hussain (Congress), Mohammed Nadimul Haque (AITC), V Vijayasai Reddy (YSRCP), M Mohamed Abdulla (DMK), Sanjay Singh (AAP) and nominated member Dharmasthala.
The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on Thursday and was referred to a joint parliamentary panel after a heated debate. The government asserted the proposed law did not intend to interfere with the functioning of mosques.
The Opposition charged that the Bill targeted the Muslims and was an attack on the Constitution. When the Rajya Sabha assembled, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, who is also the minister of minority affairs, moved the motion for nomination of members to the JPC and concurred with the recommendations of the Lok Sabha.