Parliament panel on Waqf Bill receives over 1.2 crore responses
New Delhi (PTI): A parliamentary panel examining the Waqf (Amendment) Bill has received a staggering 1.2 crore email responses amid campaigns launched by rival groups to ratchet up support for their respective viewpoints regarding the draft law.
Parliamentary sources said the Joint Committee on the Waqf Amendment Bill, chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jagadambika Pal, has also received 75,000 responses with documents to support the respective views, prompting the panel to seek additional staff from the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
"We have deployed 15 additional personnel to go through the email responses and categorise and document those," one of the sources said.
Last month, the committee sought written suggestions from the general public, NGOs, experts, stakeholders and institutions on the Bill. In a statement, the committee asked people to send their comments to the joint secretary, Lok Sabha Secretariat, Room No. 440, Parliament House Annexe, New Delhi-110001 or mail those to jpcwaqf-lss@sansad.nic.in.
The committee is also embarking on a five-city tour to seek feedback from government officials, legal experts, Waqf Board members and community representatives.
The tour, beginning September 26, will take the committee to Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bengaluru.
Through these consultations, the panel will examine key aspects of the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, including the digitisation of records, more rigorous auditing processes, enhanced legal measures for dealing with encroachments and the decentralisation of the Waqf management.
The committee's nationwide consultations are aimed at gathering feedback from government officials, legal experts, Waqf Board members and community representatives from the five states as well as from Union territories to ensure a comprehensive approach to reforming the Waqf Act.
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Supreme Court rules sex in consensual extramarital affair is not rape
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ruled that sex during a consensual extramarital affair cannot be considered rape, even if one party claims the act was based on a false promise of marriage.
Quashing a seven-year-old FIR filed by Vanita S Jadhav against Mahesh Damu Khare at the Kharghar police station in Mumbai, a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and N Kotiswar Singh highlighted a concerning trend of criminalising consensual relationships after they turn sour. The court stated that complaints of breach of promise to marry should be filed immediately and not after years of consensual sexual relations.
The affair between Khare, a married man, and Jadhav, a widow, began in 2008. Jadhav claimed that Khare had promised to marry her before engaging in sexual intercourse. However, after Khare's wife filed extortion charges against Jadhav, Jadhav lodged a rape complaint in March 2017.
The Supreme Court stated that, given the long duration of the relationship, it could not be conclusively said that the physical relationship was solely based on Khare’s alleged promise to marry.
