Waqf JPC chief defends trips as opposition says meets lack 'quorum'

NEW DELHI: Opposition MPs in Joint Parliamentary Committee examining the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024 have written to LS Speaker Om Birla expressing dismay that despite their meeting with him over the panel’s functioning and assurance that grievances will be addressed, JPC chairperson Jagdambika Pal has gone ahead with state tours, sources said. The opposition MPs have boycotted the five-state tour.

They have claimed that tour meetings being led by Pal lack quorum, a charge he has refuted, saying “study tours” of parliamentary panels are an informal exercise and are not bound by formalities like meeting the quorum.

In a communication to Birla on Nov 9, some opposition MPs said following their meeting on Nov 5, they were hopeful that the tour of JPC led by Pal may be deferred as there was no “immediate urgency” to submit the panel’s report, according to sources.

Those who have written to the speaker include DMK’s A Raja, Congress’s Mohammad Jawed and TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee, sources said.

The MPs are learnt to have said that to their “utter surprise” when they found that the tour commencing from Nov 9 had not been deferred by JPC, they thought it was prudent to boycott it, according to sources.

The panel chairman told PTI Sunday that he is confident of meeting deadline of submitting the committee’s report by the last day of first week of Parliament’s Winter Session.