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July
11, 2011 (New Delhi): The union
minorities affairs minister, Mr Salman Khurshid, has stated as follows:
Abantika Ghosh, Times News Network, 30 June, 2011, 12.04am IST (link):
"We are opposed to some recommendations like the Waqf cadre because
we do not want to create a different world for the Muslim citizens of
our country."
Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net, 29 June 2011 -
6:29pm (link):
“If you have a cadre of Muslim officers under the government, what else
is ghettoization?”
“You can’t create a special service for Muslims.”
Zakat Foundation of
India respectfully asks Mr Khurshid as to why has he chosen the
constitutional institution of ministership to commit unconstitutional
discrimination (prohibited in article 15) against Muslim citizens on the
basis of their religion ?
In the states of
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh there are statutory and
administrative arrangements in place by virtue of which separate
selections are made through provincial Public Service Commissions for
special cadres & posts of Additional Commissioners, Joint Commissioners,
Deputy Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners to manage the affairs
of the temples and Hindu religious endowments. As per legal requirement,
only those candidates can apply for these positions who profess Hindu
religion; the public notices for annual recruitments clarify this
specific qualification. The salaries etc and pensions of these officers
are paid out of the consolidated fund of the state concerned. On top of
this strongly built special purpose exclusive bureaucratic hierarchy, in
all the above mentioned states, there is an IAS officer sitting as
Commissioner and his being a Hindu is also a pre-requisite.
How does Mr Salman
Khurshid reconcile this state of affairs with his refusal to institute
Indian Waqf Service except through the string of state discrimination
whose specific prohibition in article 15 forms the basic fabric of our
sacred constitutional structure ?
In the Waqf Act no
qualification is prescribed for the post of Secretary of the Central
Waqf Council and for the posts of CEO in the State Waqf Boards except
that the CEO should be Muslim. In this regard, in 2005-06, the Sachar
Committee collected information from various state waqf boards. Later,
Zakat Foundation of India again collected information for the decade
2001-2011 from the state waqf boards under RTI Act. It was found that
the positions of Waqf CEOs have been and are being manned by veterinary
doctor, survey inspector, naib tahsildar, BDO, junior employment
officer, teacher, advocate, fresh graduate, etc. Even if a state
government officer is ever posted, though rarely, the Waqf CEO is
invariably his ‘additional charge’. That is to say, he has to work daily
for eight hours to discharge his primary responsibility in another
government position where he is substantially posted and can look at
Waqf CEO work, if at all, in additional time. While, the Waqf CEO’s work
is vast, diverse, complicated and demands expertise that comes from
specified training & competence. Below the CEO there are, usually,
clerical staff members though some of them are designated as ‘officer’.
All of them including the CEO are paid their salary by the state waqf
board from the scarce Waqf funds. Compare this scenario with the
management of temples and Hindu religious endowments & institutions.
There are batteries of high level service cadres of officers selected
through public service commissions. Their salaries and pensions are paid
from the state exchequer.
The Central Waqf
Council is the apex waqf body. It is managed on day to day basis by an
officer designated as Secretary. The Waqf Act does not provide any
qualification for a person to be appointed as Secretary, CWC. Compare
this with the management of temples and Hindu religious endowments &
institutions in the above mentioned states. The day to day work is done
of exclusive full time senior Hindu IAS officer who is appointed as
Secretary to the state government-cum-Commissioner for the management of
temples and Hindu religious endowments & institutions in the state. This
is the highest rank in state bureaucracy.
The Waqf Amendment
Bill 2010 proposes that the CEO of the state waqf board should be of the
rank of under secretary to the state government that is the lowest rank
in state bureaucracy. Here too one can immediately notice evident
discrimination. For management of temples etc the state’s highest
bureaucrat is exclusively working. But for tens of thousands of waqf
properties even in 2011 the central government has reluctantly agreed
for the state bureaucracy’s lowest level status. Besides, there is no
mention in the Bill as to from where even a Muslim under-secretary level
officer shall always be forthcoming for being posted as CEO. This
remains a million dollar question unanswered by the government while
presenting the Waqf Amendment Bill 2010. Yet, the government chose to
say no to institute Indian Waqf Service.
In our country’s
higher bureaucracy there are not more than 2.5% Muslims (against 13.4%
of their population at all-India level). One can imagine the constraints
of always finding a Muslim officer of the required seniority to be
posted as CEO of state waqf board. As against that, Hindus in higher
bureaucracy are more than ninety percent. Hence, there is always a
senior Hindu IAS officer available to be posted to head the management
of temples and religious endowments & institutions of the state. To
boot, this senior bureaucrat is supported by an exclusive cadre of next
rank Hindu bureaucrats. All of them form part of the state’s
bureaucratic fraternity. Hence, the management of temples and religious
endowments & institutions becomes a part of the overall governance of
the state. As against that, the Waqf management, at best, receives a
poor, step-brotherly treatment from the state.
Armed with the
required order of Central Information Commission, the Zakat Foundation
of India inspected the file of the Ministry of Minority Affairs
pertaining to the implementation of the Sachar Committee Report. It
found that implementation of the recommendation to institute a separate
cadre of officers to manage waqfs (say, Indian Waqf Service - IWS) went
by default. Deputy Secretary Mr Virendra Singh wrote a very brief,
non-convincing three line note saying that the IWS is not feasible. The
ministry’s record does not show that at any higher level above him, this
issue was ever examined in detail. The arguments given by Sachar
Committee (based on country wide tours, national roundtable conferences,
obtaining information from all the state waqf boards & central waqf
council, benefiting from consultants, consulting the mutawallis, etc)
have not been countered by the ministry. No alternative methodology has
been created to ensure that senior Muslim officers are always available
for being posted as CEOs in state waqf boards and as Secretary in
central waqf council.
The Congress manifesto of 2009 took pride in informing the Muslim
community of India that the implementation of the Sachar Committee
Report is under way. Thus, it endorsed the announcement made in this
regard by Smt Sonia Gandhi in 2007. This also goes with the spirit of
the UPA’s common minimum program. With so much good intention of the
current political dispensation at the centre, coupled with a clear cut
case to accept the Sachar Committee’s most reasonable recommendation, Mr
Salman Khurshid and the Ministry of Minority Affairs need to revisit the
issue and create Indian Waqf Service.
Questions? Email info@zakatindia.org |
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Learn about ZFI's efforts to reform Wakf (Amendment) Bill 2010. click here >
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