Waqf committee meetings become battleground of contesting claims

The Joint Committee of Parliament meetings on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill have turned out to be a battleground for contesting claims, as several government bodies have accused Waqf boards in the country of laying ownership on properties belonging to them and drawn sharp counterclaims.

Opposition members in the committee have claimed that a large number of Waqf properties have been in fact in "unauthorised" possession of government bodies, including the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

AIMIM's Asaduddin Owaisi, one of the more vocal and articulate opposition voices in the meetings, submitted a list of 172 Waqf properties in Delhi alone, which, he said, were in the unauthorised possession of the ASI, sources said.

His submission to the committee's chairperson and BJP member Jagdambika Pal came following the country's premier archaeology body's assertion that over 120 of its protected monuments are claimed by different Waqf boards. The ASI also accused them of unauthorised constructions.

The urban affairs and road transport ministries, besides the Railway Board, have also levelled similar charges against Waqf boards, as they supported the proposed amendments in the law.

The ASI in the last meeting of the committee on Friday shared a list of 53 of its protected monuments, with different state Waqf boards declaring them as their properties decades after the ASI's proclamation, sources added.

With the committee holding day-long meetings regularly in its bid to hear out all stakeholders and meeting the deadline to complete its recommendations by the first week of the Parliament's Winter Session, a few contentions have been common in the submissions of those opposed to the Bill in its current form.

The amendments doing away with the existing "Waqf by user" norm, which allows Waqf boards to claim a property based on its historical use for religious practices, vesting district collectors with powers to decide on a disputed property's provenance, and proposal to nominate non-Muslims to boards have been most fiercely opposed by critics in the committee.

In the last meeting on Friday, 6 September the ASI had claimed that the Waqf can claim any property as its own, prompting opposition members like Congress's Syed Naseer Hussain, and Owaisi among others to accuse it of peddling "WhatsApp university" wisdom and misleading people, sources said.