Congress: SC’s Waqf move key to restoring order

Hours after the Union government gave assurance to the Supreme Court that it will not implement key provisions of the Waqf (Amendment) Act till the next hearing, the Congress on Thursday welcomed the top court’s preliminary observations, saying they have opened the space for a broader and necessary debate on the legitimate concerns surrounding “this hastily enacted legislation”.

Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi, who addressed a press conference along with party lawmaker Imran Pratapgarhi, said the top court has re-established the “earlier legal position” on three points of the Act.

“The principal points we made in the Supreme Court is that it is not about improving institutions but about controlling them and closing them. The government can’t amputate Article 26 (of Constitution) and call it administrative efficiency,” Singhvi, who is also a senior advocate, said.

Article 26 guarantees the freedom to manage religious affairs.

Singhvi maintained that a Waqf board with token Muslim representation is another word for appropriation. “It is about a message that minority interests are fair game for takeover. The law is against established principles of law,” the Rajya Sabha member said.

Claiming that the party was not defending any one community but the constitutional principle that rights provided under Article 26 cannot be sacrificed. “Today it is Waqf, tomorrow it could be your shrine your institution. No freedom is safe, no institution is sacred. The fight is not just against a law but it’s a fight against an ideology. SC has passed an interim order an important step in restoring the order,” Singhvi added.

Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said the top court’s observations on the Waqf Act have brought into sharp focus the “very apprehensions” raised by the INDIA bloc parties inside and outside Parliament. “They have opened the space for a broader and necessary debate on the legitimate concerns surrounding this hastily enacted legislation — concerns that were neither adequately addressed during the JPC deliberations nor after the day-long discussion in Parliament,” Venugopal said in a post on X.

“The Court’s pointed remarks raise serious constitutional questions about the Act’s infringement on fundamental rights and lay bare its divisive undercurrents. The fight to defend the idea of India — inclusive, plural, and just — will continue, in the courts and with the people,” he added.

BJP hits out at Cong over National Herald case

Meanwhile, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday accused the Congress of wrongdoings and slammed it for insinuating that the government had misused the Enforcement Directorate to carry out political vendetta.

Talking to reporters, Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri accused the Congress of misusing the premises that was allocated to the National Herald for running a press. When ED filed the case, he said, Congress leaders accused the Modi government of political vendetta and misusing central agencies.

“I want to share with you my understanding of the National Herald case...This is an open and shut case of fraud, corruption and money laundering... The Congress party has used their lawyers to somehow delay and derail the case,” the minister for petroleum and natural gas said.

The senior BJP leader said that National Herald was established in 1937, but the publication of the newspaper ceased in 2008, and the National Herald case began around 2012-13, at a time when the BJP was not in power. “The real question is: how was property worth ₹2,000 crore (was) acquired with just ₹50 lakh?” he asked.