The Supreme Court has stayed key provisions of the controversial Waqf Amendment Act, 2025, sparking fresh debates on secularism in India. In this video, a senior journalist Satish Misra fiercely responds to the Central Government’s stance, emphasizing that 'Constitution defines us as a secular polity.' He also said that the amendment act was rushed in Parliament. Watch the detailed interview on how the judiciary balances minority rights and state regulation.
00:00on the show today we have satish mishraji he's a veteran journalist and a political analyst as
00:17well and we are having a conversation with him uh days after supreme court actually staged some of
00:24the key provisions which were there in the work amendment act 2025 so first of all thank you so
00:29much satishi for speaking with asianet news on such an important topic uh today topic is definitely
00:36very important as it touches the core of the constitutional values so thank you so much
00:45for inviting me for a discussion on this subject asking you something on this day on the provision
00:51which actually granted district collectors and government officials to actually go about
00:57deciding on the disputes over wakf properties uh now this is something which was of course you
01:03know passed in the bell in april this year but now the supreme court has stayed this particular
01:08provision uh do you think that it is a big failure for the central government it's the setback for
01:13them before before we pronounce um our view on whether it is good or bad for the central government
01:23let us begin that the very purpose of enacting the work act or amending the work act was political largely
01:35undoubtedly there are problems in the work properties and it could have been addressed administratively as well as
01:46amending some provisions of the earlier act but the bjp governments or the bjp as a ruling party main card is
01:57hindu muslim unless they play on it they can't or they think that they can't remain in power so what happened
02:08as you saw that the way the act was rushed through the joint parliamentary committee despite objections
02:17from the opposition members and all that the chairman of the committee wanted to rush through the act
02:26as soon as possible and then finally because bjp and its allies have majority in both the houses of parliament
02:37they could get the act enacted and then president gave it her assent to it so having said that
02:47that naturally the supreme court is the forum where aggrieved parties or who think that a wrong act has been enacted
02:59had to approach and they did approach now uh supreme court day before yesterday came out with this judgment
03:11saying that they are staying certain provisions yes and while rightly uh underlining that
03:22the legislature is fully competent and empowered to enact the law which is the basic principle of separation of
03:32power in constitution now in the uh judgment of the bench presided by the chief justice bha gawai
03:45it said that certain provisions were
03:47were worried what wrong and were contravening the basic spirit of the law like as you said the district
03:58collectors being appointed as the final arbiter of the work property now imagine the after all the district
04:10collectors are the extended arm of the executive so executive is getting priority over it imagine
04:19unless district collector's job is to implement not judge that is the basic principle and the act had
04:31in its wisdom the ruling party in its wisdom had enacted that provision and the supreme court very rightly has stayed
04:41though
04:42final judgment is yet to come right uh satishi i completely you know buy this argument that of course there has to be a
04:50separation of power and this is a case of executive overreach because definitely district collectors will fall under the
04:55uh government only uh government only but uh you know a lot of petitions which have been filed in supreme
05:01court and other courts of the country uh they say that uh is something which disproportionately favors the
05:07muslim population why don't we have these kind of provisions for other religious communities because
05:13uh you know the land which belongs to these religious communities they fall under direct
05:18government control so why do we have a different setup for this particular community you see
05:23i would welcome if a comprehensive act was enacted for all religious properties i have no issue with that
05:35but i am defying the muslims because it fits into the political propaganda and then electing a law
05:44i am objecting to that i mean in the we are secular constitution defines us as a secular polity there if you
05:56enact the law which includes christians 6 hindus and all that and all that then there will be a lot many
06:05problems there if you trust that then the the core constituency will not be very pleased with it so what you do
06:20you pick up muslims or that fits into your political propaganda and enact a law now fortunately we still
06:28have a judiciary though there's a lot of not much pressure on judiciary we all know that that it decided
06:37in its own wisdom that certain provisions need to be stayed unless a final verdict and judgment comes
06:45so even even as we say and we support there has to be a an umbrella kind of a legal framework there
06:52will remain a lot of complexities in that aspect as well uh satish i also want to talk about uh the
06:58stay on the abolition of vakf by user doctrine you know land when we talk about that okay the land will
07:04be given to work if it is in long-term use and uh but the supreme court say that there needs to be a
07:10formal documentation uh in this particular case uh now it is for all the you know the disputes that
07:17will come in future but when we talk about the numerous petitions which are already there in the
07:22ports of india what do we do about these disputed properties because vakf has already claimed um its
07:29authority on a lot of heritage and a lot of government land so what do what do we do about these kind
07:35of cases will supreme court again come into the picture to have a say on it or uh will all these
07:40petitions be clubbed there will be anything in the future that we can uh you know speculate the fact
07:46remains that it is a very very crucial aspect of the entire um this buff properties fact remains that the
07:57authority authority which has been given to asi and other institutions i mean imagine the asi has come
08:05into existence much after the work concept came into being so supreme court must deliberate on this
08:17very very deeply and should come out with a with a recommendation that which see
08:27and unfortunately one has to admit that there is a lot of malpractices going on in the work properties
08:35nobody will deny that but you have to have provisions in place which justify and which gives justice
08:51justice because unless justice is not given the our basic constitution provisions collapse justice is the
09:04fundamental factor now here there are prophecy what what can what can be done as a as a situation that
09:15the muslims communities representatives must be taken on board a discussion must ensue what should be done
09:24with such properties which are heritage properties now in use they are our common heritage they are not only the
09:35heritage of the muslims this common heritage because when these properties came up it was the state which had created
09:46not muslim individuals though there were muslim rulers and they they built a lot many you know forts and all that
09:56and mosque and all that now here the question comes that these properties are fragile they must be protected overuse will damage them
10:09so what you need a long term a counseling and positivity in that regard that such heritage monuments can be protected
10:25this and certain rules can be made that on these days or once in a year twice in a year this can be used for this and that
10:35you know the way these young people like Omar Khalid and all that have been languishing without veil for five years i mean the community will feel
11:05they will feel offended will feel bad about it so in that kind of environment you bring an act
11:13and arbitrary arbitrary provisions you introduce and supreme court has done rightly so
11:20supreme court has is yet to come with a final verdict let us see what it does but in meanwhile
11:29supreme court has said that these things can also be challenged these states can be challenged so
11:39let us see how supreme court progresses in its judgment there will be not many hearings yet to be done
11:47but welcome state way is that supreme court has done the district collector provision it was the most crucial one
11:58because that gave not many power to the executive true um of course the final verdict will have to wait and
12:05watch because these are just the observations and not something which is final yet but i also want to come to
12:12uh the imposition of limits on non-muslim members on state work votes and the central work council do you
12:20think that this is something which the community will welcome see listen first of all the supreme court
12:27has very rightly said there will not be more than four non-muslims on the board of 22 people in at the
12:35center and at the state they said not more than uh three among the 11 members now it is rightly and said and also said
12:47the secretary of the work board will be muslim as far as possible now as far as possible is a very tricky
13:00kind of thing you know executive may say it was not possible and all that but then supreme court must
13:08think on this also as far as possible but it's a welcome thing that they have observed it and they
13:17have stayed they have directed i also want to touch upon the places of worships act because there are
13:24petitions still uh in courts this particular ruling which supreme court made uh where it said that we
13:31need to preserve the religious character of all these places uh and you know the status that was there
13:38on 15th of august 1947 do you think that there will be any sort of legal challenges that we'll see in our
13:44country playing out you see listen that the religious worship act has been already been challenged
13:54is under a lot of pressure see the act was enacted when you know after the babri mass mass demolition
14:04now since then bjp government has come to power and it is doing every bit to dilute it to undermine it
14:15and ensure if possible that this religious worship act is not enacted in its spirit now so let us see how
14:31supreme court deals with it because it is a very very important act see imagine if you begin to reopen
14:42every little mosque which is happening imagine in sambal it is happening in uttar pradesh many places it is
14:52happening that suddenly the vishvindu parchat and the rashtra vishvindu organizations come up and say
14:59under this mosque there was a temple and the issue begins so supreme court has in its own wisdom must think it
15:11it uh considerate and ensure what can be done to protect this law from such elements which
15:23which are not shy of you know proclaiming claiming any muslim property as hindu property
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