By Scroll Staff
Ten Opposition members of the joint parliamentary committee on the 2024 Waqf Amendment Bill were suspended for a day on Friday, The Hindu reported. Their suspension came after the MPs protested against the alleged last-minute change in the agenda of the meeting made by the panel’s chairman Jagdambika Pal.
The members who were suspended were Kalyan Banerjee and Nadimul Haque of the Trinamool Congress, Congress’ Mohammad Jawed, Syed Naseer Hussain and Imran Masood, and A Raja and Mohamed Abdullah of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi, Samajwadi Party’s Mohibbullah Nadvi and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)’s Arvind Sawant were the other members who were suspended.
In a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, the members claimed that the “sudden and surprising” suspension came after Pal, a Bharatiya Janata Party MP, spoke to “somebody” over the phone during the meeting. The Opposition leaders demanded an investigation monitored by the Supreme Court into who Pal had spoken to on the phone, The Hindu reported.
The incident took place on a day Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq deposed before the panel in relation to the proposed legislation.
Following the meeting, the Opposition MPs said that Pal in an interview to a news agency had announced that the committee report would be adopted on January 29, the Deccan Herald reported. This deadline has been announced without consultation, they alleged.
Pal told ANI that he had allowed the panel members to put forth their views.
“When I tried to answer their questions, they [Opposition members] started sloganeering, making noise and using unparliamentary words,” Pal alleged. “They created a lot of ruckus. They were not allowing the meeting to proceed.”
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