New Delhi, Feb 13 (UNI) Parliamentary and Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Thursday slammed the Opposition for calling the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) report on the Waqf Amendment Bill as “illegal and unconstitutional” and said that Chairman Jagdambika Pal has the authority to remove a note “that casts aspersion on the Committee”.
Addressing the media at the Parliament House here, Rijiju defended the Chairman of the panel and said, “It should be clear that Pal has the authority to remove a note that casts aspersion on the Committee.
The JPC Chairman has the power to delete a portion. It is also mentioned in the rule, and everything happened as per rule.”
Objecting to the Opposition members calling the “JPC report as illegal and unconstitutional”, he said, “. The JPC was formed by all the parties and it is not of one party. This is not just an NDA report. This is Parliament’s Joint Parliamentary Committee so calling the JPC report as illegal and unconstitutional is not correct”.
Rijiju said that the JPC report has an importance and if the Opposition were speaking against this report then they were “dismissing their own report”.
As far as the report is concerned there can be differences in the opinion within the JPC, the Minister added.
“There are basically two opinions – one is those who are in the government, they might have separate opinion than those in the opposition. Even the opposition’s views have been put in the annexure. It is wrong to say that the opposition’s dissent notes are not included in the JPC.
Every view whether those considered by the majority or rejected by the majority have been included in the JPC report which was tabled in the RS today and which would be tabled in Lok Sabha,” he said.
Rijiju said that the JPC report has been tabled on the floor of the House, now it will come to the government and then the report will be considered by the Cabinet. And after the consideration of the Cabinet then whatever the amended version will be, it will then be presented in the Parliament.
The Minister said that the Opposition was already opposing the Bill which is not good and appealed to all the opposition parties to let the house consider this report as the “JPC has done a great length of consideration, hearing, debate and discussion.
Notably, the Upper House witnessed chaotic scenes leading to a brief adjournment of the house as Opposition members protested over the ‘deletion’ of dissent notes from the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) report on the Waqf Amendment Bill.
Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that the Committee on Waqf Amendment Bill had deleted the dissent notes of MPs and included views of people from outside.
He termed the move as unconstitutional, vowing to not allow the passage of such a report.
Meanwhile, similar situation was witnessed in the Lok Sabha too, when the report was tabled.
The Opposition created a ruckus and walked out of the house, alleging that dissenting comments were not included in the report of the JPC presented in the house.
