BJP MP Medha Vishram Kulkarni presented the report
Amid uproar over the alleged redaction of certain portions of the dissent notes, which saw a brief adjournment and a walkout by the Opposition members in the Rajya Sabha and adjournment till 2 pm in the Lok Sabha, a corrigendum was tabled in the Upper House in the afternoon.
In the Rajya Sabha, the report was tabled by BJP member Medha Vishram Kulkarni, a member of the JPC panel. In the Lok Sabha, the report was tabled by JPC chairman Jagdambika Pal.
In Lok Sabha, which witnessed an adjournment barely 15 minutes after assembling at 11 am, Union home minister Amit Shah said that the government has no opposition if dissent notes of the Opposition are added to the JPC report. Rajya Sabha Leader of the House J.P. Nadda slammed the Opposition MPs when they staged a walkout and said the Congress, along with other I.N.D.I.A. bloc parties, is strengthening the hands of those who are trying to break the country. He slammed the “politics of appeasement” by the Opposition and accused them of trying to weaken the country.
At the start of proceedings in the Rajya Sabha, as soon as the JPC report was tabled, the Opposition members were up in arms demanding withdrawal of the report. The House was adjourned for 10 minutes amidst uproar. Opposition MPs led by Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that dissent notes were deleted from the report, a charge denied by Union parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju.
The uproar continued as Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar tried to read out a message from President Droupadi Murmu. “Don’t show disrespect to the President of India,” Dhankhar said and urged Kharge to ask the Opposition members to take their seats.
The Opposition members, however, kept demanding the withdrawal of the report amid the threat of serious action from the House Chairman.
Dhankhar said Samirul Islam, Nadimul Haque and M. Mohamed Abdulla “created chaos and disruption in the House”. Kharge was then called to speak, who said the dissent notes of the Opposition MPs in the report on the Waqf Bill were redacted from the report.
“The report of the JPC on Waqf... In which several members had given their dissent note has been taken out. Bulldozing the report by only keeping the views of the majority members is not right. It is condemnable, anti-democratic… These MPs are not protesting for their own sake, they are protesting for the community against which injustice is being done,” Kharge said.
Quoting the ruling, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav said the JPC chairman has the power to expunge words, expressions and phrases from the dissent note if they are inappropriate and unparliamentary. Rijiju, however, denied the Opposition’s allegations and said everything has been kept on the floor of the House and nothing has been removed from the report.
The Congress MP Syed Nasir Hussain accused Rijiju, who is also the Union minority affairs minister, of misleading the House and said, “My own dissent note has been redacted”.
Rijiju reiterated that the report had all annexures and nothing was taken out. The Opposition MPs then staged a walkout and the House proceeded with the Question Hour.
Later, in the afternoon, a corrigendum to Appendix 5 was tabled in the Upper House. Chapter 5 of the appendices of the report pertains to “notes/minutes of dissent received from the members of the joint committee” and contains the notes that were redacted in the earlier tabled report.
Addressing the media in the Parliament premises, Rijiju said that he had spoken to the JPC chairman after the Opposition’s allegation, enquired about it from the secretariat and informed the Rajya Sabha that the report has been tabled along with annexures.
“In this, one thing has to be kept in mind: in the annexure and dissent note, if any question is raised on the committee, like casting an aspersion on the committee, which the chairman feels is not right, then the chairman has the power to remove it... It’s written in the rules,” he said. The minister added that the chairman, perhaps, used the power, which is as per the rules.
In a post on X, TMC Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale said the government was “forced to table the Waqf JPC with unredacted Opposition dissent notes.”
After the first adjournment, when the Lok Sabha assembled at 2 pm, Shah pointed out that some Opposition members raised objections that their dissent notes have not been fully included in the report and said, “On behalf of my party, I would like to request that the disputes of the Opposition be included in the appropriate procedure of the parliamentary process… My party has no objection to this.”
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said that he has included all the dissent notes after meeting with the Opposition leaders.
