Vol. 13 · pages 1166–1170

and for recommending such formal or consequential or necessary amendments of the Constitution as may be required. This has to be done to complete the work and I do that by virtue of the authority which you have given me, with this, we now adjourn till such date as I may announce. ***** The Constituent Assembly then adjourned to a date in November 1949 to be fixed by the President. TAKING THE PLEDGE AND SIGNING THE REGISTER . *Mr. President : I understand that there are two Members who have to take the Pledge and sign the Register. The following Member took the pledge and signed the register :— Shri M. R. Masani (Bombay General). Mr. President : We have now to take up the consideration of the Draft Constitution. ***** †The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay General) : Mr. President, Sir, I have to present the report of the Drafting Committee together with the Draft Constitution of India as revised by the Committee under rule 38-R of the Constituent Assembly rules. Sir, I move— “That the amendments recommended by the Drafting Committee in the Draft Constitution of India be taken into consideration.” Sir, I do not propose to make any very long statement of the report or on the recommendations made by the Drafting Committee for the purpose of revising or altering the articles as they were passed at the last session of this Assembly. The only thing that I wish to say is that I would not like to apologise to the House for the long list of corrigenda which has been placed before the House or the supplementary list of amendments included in list II. In my judgement it would have been much better if the Drafting Committee had been able to avoid this long list of corrigenda and the supplementary list of amendments contained in List II, but the House will realise the stress of time under which the Drafting Committee had been working. It is within the knowledge of all the Members of the House that the last session of the Constituent Assembly ended on the 17th of October. Today is the 14th of November. Obviously there was not even one full month available for the Drafting Committee to carry out this huge *CAD, Official Report, Vol. X, 14th November 1949, p. 459 †Ibid., pp. 462-464. 1133DRAFT CONSTITUTION

task of examining not less than 395 articles which are now part of the Constitution. As I said, the Drafting Committee had not even one month, but that even is not a correct statement, because according to Rule 38-R and other rules, the Drafting Committee was required to circulate the Draft Constitution as revised by them five days before this session of the House. As a matter of fact the Constitution was circulated on the 6th of November, practically eight days before the commencement of this session. Consequently the time available for the Drafting Committee was shorter by eight days. Again, it must be taken into consideration that in order to enable the Drafting Committee to send out the Draft Constitution in time, they had to hand over the draft they had prepared to the printer some days in advance to be able to obtain the copies some time before they were actually despatched. The draft was handed over to the printer on the 4th of November. It will be seen that the printer had only one day practically to carry out the alterations and the amendments suggested by the Drafting Committee. It is impossible either for the printer or for the Drafting Committe or the gentleman in charge of proof corrections to produce a correct copy of such a huge document containing 395 articles within one day. That in my judgement, is a sufficient justification for the long corrigenda which the Drafting Committee had to issue in order to draw attention to the omissions and the mistakes which had been left uncorrected in the copy as was presented to them by the printer on the 5th. Deducting all these days, it will be noticed that the Drafting Committee had barely ten days left to them to carry out this huge task. It is this shortness of time, practically ten days, which in my judgement justifies the issue of the second list of amendments now embodied in List II. If the Drafting Committee had a longer time to consider this matter they would have been undoubtedly in a position to avoid either the issue of the corrigenda or the Supplementary List of Amendments, and I hope that the House will forgive such trouble as is likely to be caused to them by having to refer to the corrigenda and to the Second List of Amendments for which the Drafting Committee is responsible. Sir, it is unnecessary for me to discuss at this stage the nature of the amendments and changes proposed by the Drafting Committee in the Draft Constitution. The nature of the changes have been indicated in paragraph 2 of the Report. It will be seen that there are really three classes of changes which the Drafting Committee has made. The first change is merely renumbering of articles, clauses, sub-clauses and the 1134 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

revision of punctuation. This has been done largely because it was felt that the articles as they emerged from the last session of the Constituent Assembly were scattered in different places and could not be grouped together under one head of subject-matter. It was therefore held by the Drafting Committee that in order to give the reader and the Members of the House a complete idea as to what the articles relating to any particular subject-matter are, it was necessary to transpose certain articles from one Part to another Part, from one Chapter to another Chapter so that they may be conveniently grouped together and assembled for a better understanding and a better presentation of the subject-matter of the Constitution. The second set of changes as are described in the report are purely formal and consequential, such as the omission of the words “of this Constitution” which occurs in the draft articles at various places. Sometimes capital letters had been printed in small type and that correction had to be made. Other alterations such as reference to Ruler and Rajpramukh had to be made because these changes were made towards the end when we were discussing the clauses relating to definition. The other changes may be compendiously called ‘necessary alterations.’ Now those necessary alterations fall into two classes, alterations which do not involve a substantial change in the article itself. These are alterations which are necessary because it was found that in terms of the language used when the articles were passed in the last session, the meaning of some articles was not clear, or there was some lacuna left which had to be made good. That the Drafting Committee has endeavoured to do without making any substantial change in the content of the articles affected by those changes. There are, however, other articles where also necessary changes have been made, but those necessary changes are changes which to some extent involve substantial change. The Drafting Committee felt that it was necessary to make these changes although they were substantial, because if such substantial changes were not made there would remain in the article as passed in the last session various defects and various omissions which it was undesirable to allow to continue, and the Drafting Committee has therefore taken upon itself the responsibility of suggesting such changes which are referred to in sub-clause (d) of paragraph 2 and I hope that this House will find it agreeable to accept those changes. As to the substantial alterations that have been made, in regard to some of them sufficient explanation has been given in paragraph 4, and I need not repeate what has been said in the report in justification of those changes. 1135DRAFT CONSTITUTION

Sir, I do not think it is necessary for me to add anything to the report of the Drafting Committee and I hope that the House will be able to accept the report as well as the changes recommended by the Drafting Committee both in the report as well as in List II which has already been circulated to the Members of the House. AMENDMENTS OF ARTICLES Mr. President: Dr. Ambedkar has presented the report and the motion now before the House is that the amendments recommended by the Drafting Committee, and the Draft Constitution be taken into consideration....* ***** †Mr. President : As I understand the point of order which you are raising Pandit Kunzru, it is this, that this article as it is now proposed goes beyond the decisions of this House and it is not a necessary consequence of any decision which has been taken. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : (Bombay : General): The only question on this point of order that could arise is whether the change proposed by the Drafting Committee in article 365 is a consequential change. It is quite clear in the judgment of the Drafting Committee that this is not only necessary but consequents, for the simple reason that, once there is power given to the Union Government to issue directions to the States that in certain matters they must act in a certain way, it seems to me that not to give the Centre the power to take action when there is failure to carry out those directions is practically negativing the directions which the Constitution proposes to give to the Centre. Every right must be followed by a remedy. If there is no remedy then obviously the right is purely a paper right, a nugatory right which has no meaning, no sense and no substance. That is the reason why the Drafting Committee regarded that such an article was necessary on the ground that it was a consequential article. But, Sir, I propose to say something more which will show that the Drafting Committee has really not travelled beyond the provisions as they were passed at the last session of the Constituent Assembly. I would ask my honourable Freind Pandit Kunzru to refer to article 280-A, clause (5), and article 306-B. Article 280-A, clause (5), and the provisions contained in the concluding portion of the main part of 306-B are now *Dots indicate interruption. †CAD, Official Report, Vol. X, 15th November 1949, pp. 507-509 1136 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

embodied in article 365. To that extent, article 365 cannot be regarded as a new article interpolated by the Drafting committee. If my honourable Friend....* Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru : May I interrupt my honourable Friend ? Article 306-B relates only to the power of the Central Executive over Governments of the States included in Part B of the first Schedule. My honourable Friend has extended that power of the Central Executive over all State Governments. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : If my honourable Friend would allow me to complete, I would like to read article 280-A, not of the present draft, but of the old, as was passed at the second reading. These are financial provisions. Clause (5) of the article 280-A says : “Any failure to comply with any directions given under clause (3) of this article shall be deemed to be a failure to carry on the Government of the State in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.” Therefore, article 365 merely seeks to incorporate this clause (5) of the article 280-A. My honourable Friend, If he refers again to article 306-B....† Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru : Will my honourable Friend allow me to interrupt him again ? The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I think it would be better if he speaks after I have completed my argument. If he refers to article 306-B which deals again with the power to issue instructions and directions to States in Part III which are now States in Part-B of the First Schedule, he will see that the last portion says : “any failure to comply with such directions shall be deemed to be a failure to carry on the Government of the State in accordance with the provisions of this “Constitution.” Therefore my contention is that article 365 does not introduce any new principle at all. It merely gathers together or assembles the different sections in which the power to issue directions is given and states in general terms that wherever power is given to issue directions and there is a failure, it would be open to the President to deem that a situation has arisen in which there has been a failure to carry out the provisions of this Constitution. The only articles in which such a power to deem that there has been a failure to carry on the Government in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution was not specifically mentioned were articles 256 and 257. It merely said that the Centre had the power to give directions. Therefore, if there is at all any extention of *Dots indicate interruption. †Ibid., 1137DRAFT CONSTITUTION