The party also said the Supreme Court’s observations on the new waqf law have brought into focus the “very apprehensions” raised by the INDIA bloc inside and outside Parliament.
Addressing a press conference here, Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi said the law attacks the rights of minorities in the name of reform and the party will not allow this to happen as the framers of the Constitution had not envisioned this.
Singhvi along with Congress’ minorities department head Imran Pratapgarhi welcomed the Thursday’s development in the Supreme Court over the new law and thanked the top court for granting time to hear the important matter.
The party said the Act was not aimed at improving but “infiltrating and controlling” the religious institutions.
“I want to say this is not reform. It is retaliation in the guise of reform. Retaliation meticulously scripted, strategically timed, and constitutionally questionable. The Waqf Amendment Act is not an exercise in efficiency as it pretends to be. It is an exercise in erasure,” Singhvi told reporters.
“Behind the bland language of governance lies the bold ambition of control. Religious autonomy is being reduced to state-administered protocol. And community rights are being redrawn with bureaucratic pens. This is not about improving institutions but about infiltrating, controlling, and closing them,” he noted.
Singhvi said what the government is calling a reform is actually an attack on the rights of minorities.
“The Waqf Act is not an administrative measure, it is a fundamental ideological attack,” he alleged.
Singhvi said the matter should not be treated as that of a community but of their rights which cannot be.
“We are not here to just defend one community. Don’t treat it as a community specific issue. We are here to defend a constitutional principle, which is that the rights like Article 26 cannot be sacrificed at the altar of majoritarian convenience,” he noted.
Singhvi, who also argued in the case before the Supreme Court, said people forget that the constitutional rights are against the majority as there would be no need for the rights otherwise.
“Today it is the Waqf, tomorrow it could be your shrine, your institution, your faith and even your voice. The Act is not just legally flawed, it is morally vacuous, it is morally vacant. It takes the soul of religious freedom and stuffs it into a file marked ‘subject to approval’.
“If this can be done in the name of administrative regulation, then no freedom is safe and no institution is sacred. This is not the future that our framers envisioned and it is not the future that the Congress party will allow, subject to court orders,” the Congress leader claimed.
Singhvi said it would not be right to look at this matter only from the point of view of Muslims or minorities. This matter is definitely about their relationship but it is a question of the soul of the Constitution, he said.
“If today the religious institutions of one community can be taken over, then tomorrow every minority institution will be in danger. This Act attacks the spirit of equality in the Constitution and also attempts to link religious freedom with government approval,” he said.
AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said the Supreme Court’s observations on the Waqf Amendment Act, 2025 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.
“The Court’s pointed remarks raise serious constitutional questions about the Act’s infringement on fundamental rights and lay bare its divisive undercurrents,” Vengopal said in a post on X.
“The fight to defend the idea of India — inclusive, plural, and just — will continue, in the courts and with the people,” he added.
Singhvi said in the language of law reform, this Act attempts to bring in a policy of 100 per cent control. It not only hurts religious institutions but also crushes the self-determination and autonomy of minorities. It is presenting interference of power as “good governance”, he noted.
He said the Congress party will not remain silent and it will oppose this Act on the streets and in Parliament.
“The Waqf Act is a targeted encroachment. The Act tramples upon established judicial principles in the name of administrative efficiency,” he alleged.
Noting that no one is saying that there is no limit to these rights and accordingly its limits are also written in the Constitution and those limits are “public order, health and morality”, he said, “There is no provision in it (Waqf law) that has been made to protect public law, health and public morality.” Congress leader Imran Pratapgarhi thanked the apex court and said, “The Supreme Court has put a stay on many points of the anti-constitutional amendments made in the Waqf law till further orders.” “The suggestions given by the opposition MPs in JPC and Parliament were rejected. Some petitioners had gone to the Supreme Court regarding this,” he said.
“We are hopeful that we will get more relief in the next hearing, because this was an attack on the core of the Constitution. Therefore, this decision is a victory for the Constitution,” he said.
Pratapgarhi further said that the Congress has always taken and will always take the full responsibility of making and protecting the Constitution. PTI SKC KVK KVK
