New Delhi: Amid political furore over portions of dissent notes blackened and whitened out in the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) report on the Waqf Amendment Bill tabled in Rajya Sabha Thursday, the Centre restored some of the redacted parts through a corrigendum.
BJP MP Medha Vishram Kulkarni tabled the corrigendum to Appendix 5 of the report containing “Notes/minutes of dissent received from the Members of the Joint Committee”. It included some of the redactions that led to an uproar in Parliament.
A look at the report tabled in the Upper House Thursday morning, and the corrigendum in the afternoon, show that the portions that were redacted from the dissent notes either raise questions on the conduct of JPC chairperson Jagdambika Pal or criticise the “political agenda” of the BJP behind introducing the Bill.
A few redactions have not been reinstated.
For instance, the largest share of redactions took place in the case of the dissent note submitted by AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi that he made public on social media.
The lines that were redacted, and later restored through the corrigendum, are: “It is therefore clear that the proposed Bill is not an exercise undertaken for the benefit of auqaf, but is an act in furtherance of a consistent political agenda of the present government to systematically undermine the rights of minorities, particularly Muslims, in this country.”
The portion in his dissent note that alleged that the JPC was “an exercise driven by a political agenda to seek to lend a charade of legitimacy to this unconstitutional Bill by creating a farce of a consultative process” was also redacted. But it has not been reinstated.
Owaisi’s allegation in the dissent note that “the sanctity of the committee proceedings being compromised was the platforming of extremist organisations such as the Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Janajagruti Samiti to express their views on the Bill”, was also redacted, but not reinstated.
“Despite objections being raised regarding their violent and extremist ideologies, which advocate for the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra through unlawful means, and the reported involvement of their members with terrorist activities and other heinous crimes, including the murders of Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi, and Gauri Lankesh, these anti-national organisations were still granted an opportunity to present their views before this esteemed Committee. Their participation tarnished the dignity of Parliament and diminished the gravity of the work being conducted,” he had flagged in the redacted portion. This too, was not reinstated.
There were alleged redactions from the joint dissent notes submitted by DMK’s A Raja and Mohamed Abdulla as well. The lines that the JPC report “is wholly unconstitutional, fails to address the real issues, is divisive in nature and can destroy the secular fabric of our country” were redacted and then restored, it is learnt.
However, their allegation that functioning of the JPC has been held in a “most undemocratic manner” were not restored, it is learnt.
The line, “To our mind, the Bill should be titled as the ‘Waqf Annihilation Bill’ given the stealthy manner in which there is an attempt to anyhow change the nature and character of dedicated properties, vesting in the Almighty for all times to come”, was also allegedly redacted, and restored through the corrigendum.
Congress’s Lok Sabha Deputy Leader Gaurav Gogoi’s submissions in his dissent note that “the committee has rushed through its mandate in a manner which is both polemic and perfunctory” and that “bad faith actors who are self-professedly inimical to institutions such as the waqf have been called to give their opinion” were learnt to have been redacted and restored.
Another line that was not restored through the corrigendum is learnt to be: “the committee has failed to live up to this mandate, and discharge its responsibility to uphold a bipartisan consultation process for the same”.
The alleged portions that were redacted from the joint dissent note of TMC MPs Kalyan Banerjee and Nadimul Haque also pertain to the conduct of the JPC chairperson and BJP members in the committee.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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