Fact Check: No Government Helpline Released For Wakf (Amendment) Bill Support, Public Suggestion Deadline Has Expired

New Delhi (Vishvas News). In the context of the Waqf Amendment Bill being sent to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), some users on social media are sharing a mobile number, claiming that the government has provided it for missed calls to support the abolition of the Waqf Board.

Vishvas News investigated and found this claim to be false. After the Waqf Board Amendment Bill was introduced in the Parliament, it was referred to the JPC. The first meeting of the JPC was held on August 22, 2024 during which it was decided to seek public opinion via newspaper advertisements. The public was given 15 days to submit their suggestions through email and post. No mobile number was issued by the government for this opinion poll.

What is viral?

Facebook user ‘Rajesh Rashtriya Sarvopari’, shared the viral post with the caption, “9209204204… If anyone does not know how to send an email to support the removal of the Wakf Board, just give a missed call on this number. Do it and share this in all your groups, today is the last date, do some service in the country’s interest.”

Many other users have shared this post with similar claims.

Investigation

We first called the phone number given in the post, to verify it. OnTruecaller, the number is labelled as ‘Waqf Board Spam’ and was found to be switched off. According to the information available on the Press Information Bureau (PIB) website,  the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, and the Muslim Waqf (Repeal) Bill, 2024 were introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 8, 2024. Afterwards, the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024 was referred to the JPC.

Following this, the first meeting of the JPC was held on August 22, 2024, where it was decided that public suggestions would be sought from all the stakeholders via newspaper advertisements. In these ads, the JPC had sought people’s views and suggestions in this matter.

As per the advertisement issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, suggestions were sought within 15 days of the release of the advertisements through email (jpcwaqf-lss@sansad.nic.in) or mail to Lok Sabha Secretariat (Joint Secretary, Lok Sabha Secretariat, Room No. 440, Parliament House Annexe, New Delhi, 110001).

According to the advertisement information, apart from public opinion, suggestions were also sought from NGOs/experts/stakeholders and other institutions on this bill.

This has also been covered in many other news reports.

 A September 12, 2024, report by The Hindu mentioned that after the JPC sought suggestions on the Waqf Bill, both Hindu and Muslim groups encouraged people to send their suggestions and a pre-drafted message was shared on social media for this.

Additionally, another report stated that JPC is scheduled to meet on September 19-20, 2024, and so far the committee has received around 84 lakh suggestions.

According to an Economic Times report dated September 18, 2024, “A JPC meeting on Wakf (Amendment) Bill, scheduled for that day, was postponed due to technical reasons and will now take place on September 19-20, 2024.”

We reached out to Deepak Ranjan, a PTI-language journalist who covers parliamentary affairs, to verify the viral claim. He said that the deadline for the general public to give suggestions on this bill was September 18, 2024, and it had to be sent through post and email.

The group responsible for spreading the misinformation is a public group with over 2.5 lakh followers.

Conclusion: The JPC invited public suggestions on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, through email and post; no number was issued by the government for this purpose. The deadline for public submission was September 16, 2024, while other stakeholders were set to present their opinions directly to the committee.

Tags

• Wakf (Amendment) Bill
• Wakf Board