Joint Panel on Waqf Bill Formed; 21 MPs From Lok Sabha, 10 From Rajya Sabha

A joint parliamentary committee to examine the Waqf (Amendment) Bill has been formed with 31 members, including 21 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha. The committee will be chaired by a person to be named by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and is tasked with submitting a report by the next session.

New Delhi: The joint committee of Parliament to examine the Waqf (Amendment) Bill will have 31 members -- 21 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha -- and will submit its report by the next session.

The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha on Friday adopted a motion moved by Union Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, who also holds the parliamentary affairs portfolio, naming the members to be part of the committee.

In the Lower House, 12 members of the panel are from the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), including eight from the BJP, and nine from the opposition. In the Upper House, four are from the BJP, four from the opposition and one is a nominated member.

The Lok Sabha members in the panel are Jagdambika Pal, Nishikant Dubey, Tejasvi Surya, Aparajita Sarangi, Sanjay Jaiswal, Dilip Saikia, Abhijit Gangopadhyay, DK Aruna (all BJP); Gaurav Gogoi, Imran Masood and Mohammadd Jawed (all Congress); Mohibullah (Samajwadi Party); Kalyan Banerjee (Trinamool Congress); A Raja (DMK); Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu (Telugu Desam Party); Dileshwar Kamait (JDU); Arvind Sawant (Shiv Sena-UBT); Suresh Mhatre (NCP-Sharad Pawar); Naresh Mhaske (Shiv Sena); Arun Bharti (Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas); and Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM).

Those included from the Rajya Sabha are Brij Lal, Medha Vishram Kulkarni, Gulam Ali, Radha Mohan Das Agrawal (all BJP); Syed Naseer Hussain (Congress); Mohammed Nadimul Haque (Trinamool Congress); V Vijayasai Reddy (YSRCP); M Mohamed Abdulla (DMK); Sanjay Singh (AAP); and nominated member Dharmasthala Veerendra Heggade.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is expected to name the committee's chairperson soon. There is a view that BJP's Pal may head the panel but officials said a final call would be taken by Birla.

The Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday and referred to a joint committee of Parliament after a heated debate, with the government asserting the proposed law did not intend to interfere with the functioning of mosques and the opposition calling it targeting of Muslims and an attack on the Constitution.

The committee will submit its report to the Lok Sabha by the last day of the first week of the next session, Rijiju said. A delegation of Muslim clerics also met Rijiju to extend its support to the amendments to the Wakf Act, 1995, proposed by the government amid the opposition's strong criticism.