31-member Parliamentary panel to examine Waqf Amendment Bill

A 31-member joint parliamentary committee will examine the Waqf (Amendment) Bill and submit its report in the first week of the winter session of Parliament. The committee will have 21 members from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha.

The Lok Sabha members to be part of the panel are Jagdambika Pal, Nishikant Dubey, Tejasvi Surya, Aparajita Sarangi, Sanjay Jaiswal, Dilip Saikia, Abhijit Gangopadhyay, DK Aruna, Gaurav Gogoi, Imran Masood, Mohd Javed, Maulana Mohibbullah, Kalyan Banerjee, A Raja, Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayulu, Arvind Sawant, Matre Balya Mama Suresh Gopinath, Naresh Ganpath Mhaske, Arun Bharti and Asaduddin Owaisi.

The panel will submit its report on the last day of the first week of the next session of Parliament, said minorities affairs minister Kiren Rijiju. As he moved a motion to adopt the names of 21 members, Congress member Kodukkunil Suresh said the Indian Union Muslim League, his party's Kerala ally, should be included in the panel.


The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, aims to address several issues related to the powers of state Waqf boards, registration and survey of Waqf properties and the removal of encroachments. It also proposes the repeal of the Mussalman Wakf Act, 1923, and seeks to rename the Wakf Act, 1995, as the Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency, and Development Act, 1995. The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday and referred to a joint parliamentary committee after several opposition members expressed concerns about its potential impact on the federal structure and its perceived encroachment on religious autonomy.