Vol. 13 · pages 476–480

Shri V. S. Sarwate : I do not wish to press it. The amendment was, by leave of the Assembly, withdrawn. [Four other amendments were negatived.] Article 25, as amended, was adopted and added to the Constitution. ***** ARTICLE 26 *Mr. Vice-President: We then come to article 26. The motion before the House is : That article 26 form part of the Constitution. Amendment No. 809 is of a negative character and therefore disallowed. (Amendment No. 810 was not moved.) Amendments Nos. 811 and 812 are of similar import. I should say they are almost identical. I allow 811 to be moved. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I move : “That in article 26 for the words ‘guaranteed in’ the words ‘conferred by’ be substituted.” This part does not guarantee but only confers these rights. Therefore to bring the language in conformity, I propose this amendment. [Amendment of Dr. Ambedkar alone was adopted. Article 26 as amended was adopted and added to the Constitution.] ***** ARTICLE 27 †Mr. Vice-President : Amendments Nos. 817 and 818 are to be considered together. 817 may be moved ; it stands in the name of Dr. Ambedkar. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I move. “That for clause (a) of article 27 the following be substituted : ‘(a) with respect to any of the matters which under clause (2a) of article 10, article 16, clause (3) of article 25, and article 26, may be provided for by legislation by Parliament, and,’ ” The object of introducing this addition of clause (2a) of article 10 is because this is a new clause which was adopted by this House. It is, therefore, necessary to make a reference to it in this article. *CAD, Vol. VII, 9th December 1948, p. 955. †Ibid., pp. 956-58. 443DRAFT CONSTITUTION

Mr. Vice-President : There is an amendment to this amendment. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I have moved it as amended. Mr. Vice-President : I see. (Amendment No. 818 was not moved.) Amendment No. 819 is a verbal amendment. Amendment No. 820 may be moved. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I move. “That for the words ‘to provide for such matters and for prescribing punishment for such acts’ the words ‘for prescribing punishment for the acts referred to in clause (b) of this article’ be substituted.” ***** Mr. Vice-President: Amendment Nos. 822 and 823 are of similar import. No. 822 can be moved. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I move : “That for the proviso and explanation to article 27, the following be substituted : ‘Provided that any law in force immediately before the commencement of this Constitution in the territory of India or any part thereof with respect to any of the matters referred to in clause (a) of this article or providing for punishment for any act referred to in clause (b) of this article, shall, subject to the terms thereof, continue in force therein, until altered or repealed or amended by Parliament.’ ‘Explanation.—In this article the expression ‘law in force’ has the same meaning as in article 307 of this Constitution’.” (Amendment Nos. 50 of List No. 1, 65 of List No. IV and 823 were not moved.) Mr. Vice-President : The article is now open for discussion. (At this stage Mr. Kamath rose to speak.) Mr. Vice-President: I hope you will permit me to get the things through before we disperse in which case, I shall adjourn the House at 1 o’clock. Shri H. V. Kamath : I am equally anxious. Mr. Vice-President, I am here seeking only a little light from Dr. Ambedkar with regard to his amendment No. 820 moved by him. I fail to see clearly why the words in the article as it stands at present should be substituted by the words he proposes to. In case his amendment is accepted, it will mean that Parliament shall have power only for prescribing punishment for the acts referred to in clause (b). Then what about the Parliament’s power to make laws with respect to any of the matters which under this power are required to be provided for by legislation in clause (a) ? Does he intend by his amendment to take away the power which is 444 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

sought to be conferred by clause (a) of this article ? ......... I want to know exactly what the import of his amendment is and why this clause (a) is sought to be amended in this fashion. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I am sorry, Mr. Kamath has not been able to understand the scheme which is embodied in article 27. This article embodies three principles. The first principle is that wherever this Constitution prescribes that a law shall be made for giving effect to any Fundamental Right or where a law is to be made for making an action punishable, which interferes with Fundamental Rights, that right shall be exercised only by Parliament, notwithstanding the fact that having regard to the List which deals with the distribution of power, such law may fall within the purview of the State Legislature. The object of this is that Fundamental Rights, both as to their nature and as to the punishments involved in the infringement thereof, shall be uniform throughout India. Therefore, if that object is to be achieved, namely, that Fundamental Rights shall be uniform and the punishments involved in the breach of Fundamental Rights also shall be uniform, then that power must be exercised only by the Parliament, so that there may be uniformity. The second tiling is this. If there are already Acts which provide punishments for breaches of Fundamental Rights, unless and until the Parliament makes another or a better provision, such laws will continue in operation. That is the whole scheme of the tiling. I do not see why there should be any difficulty in understanding the provisions contained in article 27. Shri H. V. Kamath : I am sorry, Sir, that Dr. Ambedkar has not been able to follow me clearly (Laughter). The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : It is quite possible. Mr. Vice-President : Mr. Kamath, it may be the other way. ***** Shri H. V. Kamath : I am addressing you. Sir, as I always do. The difficulty that arises is this. In the article as it stands at present, clause (a) gives Parliament alone the power. I do not question this : I agree Parliament and Parliament alone should have the right. You say here Parliament shall have power to make laws with regard to any of the matters. Further on, you say that parliament shall, as soon as may be, after the commencement of this Constitution, make laws to provide 445DRAFT CONSTITUTION

etc., Now, Dr. Ambedkar wants to substitute this latter part by amendment No. 820. You want to omit the words “provide for such matters” and retain only the proviso as regards punishment. What about making laws for such matters ? Why do you delete that portion ? Why do you retain only the part regarding punishment ? That was my point, but Dr. Ambedkar has answered a different point. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: The reason why for instance, I have introduced an amendment in clause (a) is because it is only in specific matters that Parliament has been given this penal authority and these articles are referred to in my amendment. My friend Mr. Kamath will see that clause (a) contains no reference to any of the articles which specifically give parliament the power to make laws. It is to make that point clear that I thought it would be desirable to make a reference to clause (2a) of article 10, article 16, clause (3) of article 25 and article 26, because, these are the specific articles which are to be dealt with exclusively by Parliament. Mr. Vice-President : I shall now put the amendments to vote. All of them stand in the name of Dr. Ambedkar. [Amendment Nos. 817, 820 and 822 moved by Dr. Ambedkar were adopted Article 27, as amended was adopted and added to the Constitution.] ***** ARTICLE 27A *Mr. Vice-President : I am well aware that there are many more Members who want to speak and who are fully competent to deal with this subject, but I think that it has been discussed sufficiently. Therefore I shall call upon Dr. Ambedkar. I am sorry to disoblige honourable Members, but I think they will recognise the fact that we have to make a certain amount of progress daily. Shri Loknath Misra (Orissa : General) : But many points have been left untouched. Mr. Vice-President : Dr. Ambedkar. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : (Bombay : General) : Mr. Vice-President, Sir, this matter, as Honourable Members will recall, was debated at great length when we discussed one of the articles in *CAD, Vol. VII, 10th December 1948, pp. 967-68. 446 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

the Directive Principles which we have passed. It was at my instance that it was sought to incorporate in the Directive Principles an item relating to the separation of the executive and the judiciary. Originally the proposition contained a time limit of three years. Subsequently as a result of discussion and as a result of pointing out all the difficulties of giving effect to that principle, the House decided to delete the time limit and to put a sort of positive imposition upon the provincial governments to take steps to separate the executive from the judiciary. On that occasion, all this matter was gone into and I do not think that there is any necessity for me to repeat what I said there. There is no dispute whatsoever that the executive should be separated from the judiciary. With regard to the separation of the executive from the legislature, it is true that such a separation does exist in the Constitution of the United States ; but if my friend, Prof. Shah, had read some of the recent criticisms of that particular provision of the Constitution of the United States, he would have noticed that many Americans themselves were quite dissatisfied with the rigid separation embodied in the American Constitution between the executive and the legislature. One of the proposals which has been made by many students of the American Constitution is to obviate and to do away with the separation between the executive and the judiciary completely so as to bring the position in America on the same level with the position as it exists, for instance, of the U. K. In the U. K. there is no differentiation or separation between the executive and the legislature. It is advocated that a provision ought to be made in the Constitution of the United States whereby the members of the Executive shall be entitled to sit in the House of Representatives or the Senate, if not for all the purposes of the legislautre such as taking part in the voting, at least to sit there and to answer questions and to take part in the legal proceedings of debate and discussion of any particular measure that may be before the House. In view of that, it will be realised that the Americans themselves have begun to feel a great deal of doubt with regard to the advantage of a complete separation between the Executive and the Legislature. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind and in the minds of many students of political science, that the work of Parliament is so complicated, so vast that unless and until the Members of Legislature receive direct guidance and initiative 447DRAFT CONSTITUTION