New Delhi, January 25 (IANS). The MPs suspended from the JPC meeting on the Waqf Amendment Bill on Friday have written a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi said that the members suspended from JPC include senior MPs from different political parties, who have wide experience. He has been involved in many committees and many of them have previously been members of various JPCs. They are well aware of its rules and procedures. However, we have never seen a JPC in which 10 members were suspended simultaneously.
Gaurav Gogoi said, “We had seen in Parliament when 140 MPs were suspended in one day. Today that process was seen in the committee of Parliament. Time and again we have seen that meetings were suddenly held without any notice. The date comes and the agenda of the meeting is changed. The questions raised in the JPC have not been answered and the meeting has been called again.
He said that the opposition MPs have written a letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker which has all the details.
Hyderabad Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi agreed and said that what the Congress leader has said is based on truth. Waqf Amendment Bill is a very sensitive issue. If the government tries to force it and tries to bring it directly to Parliament through the Joint Working Committee, it will have serious negative consequences, both legal and social. If the government is in a hurry, it will have even worse consequences. This process should be done with care and caution, because passing this bill without proper deliberation will only harm the society and the legal framework around it.
Let us tell you that the opposition MPs included in the JPC have written a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Friday, raising questions on the working methods of the committee chairperson Jagdambika Pal and demanding postponement of the proposed meeting of January 27. It is written in the letter that Jagdambika Pal has been arbitrarily changing the dates of the meetings. He alleged that in the meeting held on Friday, when the opposition MPs included in the committee objected to this and stood up to present their views, he suspended 10 members of the opposition.
–IANS
DKM/AKJ
