Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra has filed a petition challenging the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, alleging that parliamentary rules and practices were violated during the law-making process, contributing to the unconstitutionality of the 2025 Act.
This is the first petition among the many filed so far against the Waqf Acts, claiming that the Chairperson of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) flouted the parliamentary rules and practices, both at the stage of consideration and adoption of the draft report of JPC on the Bill, and at the stage of presentation of the said report before the Parliament.
According to the Lok Sabha MP from the Krishnanagar constituency, the draft report of the JPC was circulated to the Committee members only on January 28, a day before it was to be considered final for adoption on January 29, making it practically impossible to review.
The petition claimed that following the Chairperson’s approval of the draft report prepared by the Secretariat, copies of the report were supposed to be circulated to the Committee members well in advance of the date fixed for consideration. (Speaker’s Direction 69(1); Kaul and Shakdher, Practice and Procedure of Parliament (2016) p 853).
The petitioner alleged that the dissent notes submitted by the Opposition members, who were part of the JPC, were ‘unreasonably’ and ‘arbitrarily’ redacted from the final report represented before the Parliament on February 13.
The plea further contended that the Chairperson failed to demonstrate that the redacted submissions and notes used unparliamentary language. The redaction of the dissenting viewpoints and submissions undermined the Parliament’s prerogative to consider all the views contained in the report prior to arriving at its independent conclusions during the deliberative process. (Kaul and Shakdher, Practice and Procedure of Parliament (2016) p 854).
Other irregularities, as alleged in the petition, were in the conduct of JPC, including the invitation of non-stakeholders for the meetings, the non-disclosure of the minutes of the meetings, the responses of witnesses, and the presentations made during the meetings with members.
The petitioner further challenged various provisions of the 2025 Act, such as those omitting waqf by user, insertion of Section 3C, and inclusion of two non-Muslim members excluding the two ex-officio members in the Central Waqf Council and the State Waqf Boards.
The plea claimed that the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 violated the principle of the rule of law, equality before the law, and equal treatment by the law, forming the bedrock of the constitutional imperative of equal citizenship. In stark contrast to statutory provisions stipulating the composition of administrative councils, committees and boards of non-Muslim religious and charitable endowments, the 2025 Act amended Sections 9 and 14 of the Waqf Act, 1995, to mandate the inclusion of non-Muslims in the Central Waqf Council and the State Waqf Boards.
The MP further challenged the insertion of Section 64(I) in the Act, which provided additional grounds for the removal of a Mutawalli, in case he was a member of an association declared unlawful under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
The petition challenged the removal of Section 104 of the 1995 Waqf Act, which validated giving and donating any movable and immovable property by any person to the waqf.
Section 4 (ix) of the Impugned Amendment Act, by amending Section 3(r) of the Waqf Act, 1995, not only prevented the donation of property by non-Muslims, but also imposes arbitrary criteria of demonstrating the practice of Islam for five years on any Waqif, it pointed out.