The amendments to a 1995 legislation governing waqf endowments would add non-Muslims to boards that handle such properties.
India’s principal opposition social gathering says it is going to problem a not too long ago handed invoice that overhauls legal guidelines governing Muslim non secular endowments within the nation’s Supreme Courtroom.
The waqf amendment bill, hailed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “main milestone for reform and transparency”, was handed by the parliament’s higher home early on Friday, a day after it was authorized by the decrease home.
The amendments to a 1995 legislation governing Muslim endowments would add non-Muslims to boards that handle such properties and provides the federal government a bigger function in validating their land holdings.
Waqf refers to private property – moveable or immovable – that’s completely donated by Muslims for non secular or charitable functions. Waqf properties can’t be bought or transferred.
The federal government says the adjustments to the legal guidelines governing waqf properties will assist battle corruption and mismanagement whereas selling variety, however critics worry that they’ll additional undermine the rights of the nation’s Muslim minority and could possibly be used to confiscate historic mosques and different properties.
Two days of intense debates in parliament over the invoice noticed the Congress social gathering condemning it as “unconstitutional”, with social gathering chief Sonia Gandhi calling it “a brazen assault on the structure”.
“It is vitally a lot a part of the BJP’s deliberate technique to preserve our society in a state of everlasting polarisation,” she stated, referring to Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Get together.
On Friday, Congress chief Jairam Ramesh stated the social gathering “will very quickly be difficult within the Supreme Courtroom the constitutionality of the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024“, because the proposal is named.
“We’re assured and can proceed to withstand all assaults of the Modi authorities on the ideas, provisions, and practices which are contained within the Structure of India,” Ramesh posted on X.
One of the controversial adjustments to the waqf invoice is in its possession guidelines, which may have an effect on lots of of mosques, shrines and graveyards. Many such properties lack formal documentation as they had been donated with out authorized information a long time, even centuries, in the past.
Dwelling Minister Amit Shah, a detailed Modi aide, stated the adjustments will assist “catch the individuals who lease out properties” for particular person beneficial properties.
“That cash, which could possibly be used to assist the event of minorities, is being stolen,” he stated.
However Communist Get together of India (Marxist) chief Subhashini Ali accused the federal government of utilizing the invoice to polarise voters earlier than state elections in Bihar, a key northern Indian state the BJP is but to manipulate immediately.
Tamil Nadu state’s Chief Minister M Okay Stalin stated his social gathering additionally plans to problem the laws within the Supreme Courtroom. Legislators within the state meeting earlier handed a decision opposing the amendments.
“The Waqf Invoice tells each Indian Muslim: ‘You aren’t an equal citizen of India, know your home, your rights usually are not the identical as ours,’” Mahua Moitra, a legislator from the opposition All India Trinamool Congress, posted on X. “By no means felt so unhappy, so ashamed.”
The laws has drawn robust condemnation from Muslim teams. Jamaat-e-Islami Hind referred to as it “a direct assault on non secular freedom and constitutional rights”.
“The passage is extremely condemnable,” the group’s president, Syed Sadatullah Husaini, stated in an announcement, accusing the federal government of undermining the rights of minority communities.
The All India Muslim Private Legislation Board, one other outstanding neighborhood organisation, stated such feedback had been in opposition to the basics of Islamic endowments as such our bodies essentially should be ruled by Muslims solely.
The board stated the invoice was “a blatant infringement on the constitutional rights of Muslim residents” and referred to as on them to rise in protest in opposition to it.
