Vol. 13 · pages 586–590

Draft Constitution ARTICLE 67-A *Mr. President: ...We shall now proceed to the consideration of the Draft Constitution. The House dealt with articles up to 67. We shall now proceed further. The Steering Committee was of the opinion that we might adopt the articles dealing with election matters first. That is, I think, the wish of this House also. But I understand that it will not be possible to proceed with those articles today and we can take them up from tomorrow. Today we begin with article 68 and such articles only dealing with election matters as fall within today’s discussion, and those that come later will be taken up tomorrow. There is one article of which notice has been given by way of amendment, i.e., 67-A. It will be taken up first. NEW ARTICLE 67-A The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay : General) : Mr. President, Sir, I move : “ That after article 67, the following new article be inserted :— 67-A. (1) The President may nominate persons not exceeding three in number to assist and advise the Houses of Parliament in connection with any particular Bill introduced or to be introduced in either House of Parliament. (2) Every person so nominated in connection with any particular Bill shall, in relation to the said Bill, have the right to speak in, and otherwise to take part in the proceedings of either House and any joint sitting of the Houses of Parliament and any Committee of Parliament of which he may be named a member, but shall not, by virtue of such nomination, be entitled to vote nor shall he be entitled to speak in or otherwise to take part in the proceedings of either House or any joint sitting of the Houses or any Committee of Parliament in relation to any other matter.’ ” Sir, the necessity for this article being inserted in the Constitution is this : The House will remember that the composition of the Upper Chamber was originally set out in paragraph 14 of the report of the Union Constitution Committee. In that paragraph it was stated that the Drafting Committee should adopt as its model the Irish system nominating fifteen members of the Upper Chamber out of a panel * CAD, Official Report, Vol. VIII, 18th May 1949. pp. 82-83.

constituted by various interests such as science, literature, agriculture, engineering and so on. When the Drafting Committee took up this matter, Sir, B. N. Rau, who had in the meanwhile gone on tour, had a discussion with Mr. De Valera and the other members of the Irish Government as to how far this system which was in operation in Ireland had been a successful thing, and he was told that the panel system had completely failed with the result that the Drafting Committee decided to drop the provision suggested in paragraph 14 of the report of the Union Constitution Committee, and proposed a simple measure, viz., to endow the President with the authority to nominate fifteen persons to the Upper Chamber representing special knowledge or practical experience in science, literature and social services. After the Drafting Committee had prepared this draft, the matter was again reconsidered by the Union Constitution Committee and at this session of the Union Constitution Committee, the Committee proposed that the total number of nominations which was originally restricted to fifteen should be divided into two classes, viz., that there should be a set of people nominated as full members of the House and they should have special knowledge and practical experience in art, science, literature and social services and that three other persons should be nominated as experts to assist and advise Parliament in the matter of any particular measure that the Parliament may be considering at the moment. The first part of the recommendation of the second session, if I may say so, of the Union Constitution Committee has already been incorporated in article 67 which has already been passed by the Assembly. It is to give effect to the second part of the recommendation of the Union Constitution Committee that this article is proposed to be introduced in the Constitution. Honourable Members will see that this article limits the functions of the members nominated thereunder. The functions are to assist and advise the Houses in a particular measure that may be before the House; in other words, the members who would be nominated under article 67-A, their term and their duration will be co-terminous with the proceedings with regard to a particular hill in relation to which they are nominated by the President to advise and assist the House. From the second paragraph of article 67-A it will be noticed that they are only entitled to take part in the debate, whether the debate is taking place in the House as a whole or in a particular committee to which 554 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

they are nominated by the House as members thereof; but they are not entitled to vote at all, so that the addition of these three members will certainly not affect the voting strength of the House. I am sure that the House will accept this new provision contained in article 67-A. If I may point out to the House, the provision contained in article 67-A of nominating experts to the House is not at all a new suggestion. Those members of the House who are familiar with the provisions of the Government of India Act of 1919 know when it introduced a popular element in the House, it also contained a provision which empowered the Governors of the different provinces to appoint experts to deal in a particular manner when the House is considering such a measure. I think it is a useful provision and it would do a lot of good if such a provision was introduced in the Constitution. ***** *Mr. President: The suggestion is that this thing was not circulated before and Members wish to have time. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I have no objection if the House wants that the consideration of this matter be postponed. Mr. President: We shall postpone it today and we shall take it up later. ARTICLE 68 Mr. President: The motion is : “ That article 68 form part of the Constitution.” We shall now take up the amendments to this article. (Amendments Nos. 1453 and 1454 were not moved.) Amendment No. 1455 stands in the name of Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad. I think that is a verbal amendment. Will you like to move it ? With regard to these verbal amendments, I was going to make a suggestion to the Honourable Dr. Ambedkar. With regard to them, he might consider them in consutaltion with the Members who have given notice of such verbal amendments and such of them as would be accepted could be taken up at the time when the motion is placed before the House as having been accepted and we would save the time of the House in that way, but with regard to those which are not acceptable, of course, we shall have to consider what to do with them. *CAD, Vol. VIII, 18th May 1949, p. 84. 555DRAFT CONSTITUTION

The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : The Drafting Committee may be very glad to follow that procedure. ***** *The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir I move : “ That in the proviso to clause (2) of article 68, for the words ‘ by the President’ the words ‘by Parliament by law’ be substituted.” It is not necessary to offer any explanation for the amendment which I have moved. It will be seen that the clause as it stands vests the power of extending the life of Parliament in the President. It is felt that this is so much of an invasion of the ordinary constitutional provisions that such a matter should really be vested in Parliament and that Parliament should be required to make such a provision for extending the life of itself by law and not by any other measure such as a resolution or motion. Mr. President : Amendment No. 1465 : that is covered by Dr. Ambedkar’s amendment. It is not necessary to take it up. ***** †The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Mr. President, Sir, I do not think that anything has been said in the course of the debate on my amendment No. 1464, which calls for a reply. I think the amendment contains a very sound principle and I hope the House will accept it. With regard to the amendment moved by my friend Prof. Shah, I think some of the difficulties which arise from it, have already been pointed out by my friend Mr. T. T. Krishnamachari. Election, after all, is not a simple matter. It involves a tremendous amount of cost and I think it would be unfair to impose both upon the Government and upon the people this enormous cost of too frequent elections for short periods. I quite sympathise with the point of view expressed by Prof. Shah, that it has been the experience throughout that whenever an election takes place immediately after a war, people sometimes become so unbalanced that the election cannot be said to represent the true mind of the people. But at the same time, I think it must be realised that war is not the only cause or circumstance which leads to the unhinging, so to say, of the minds of the people from their normal moorings. There are many other circumstances, many incidents which are not actually wars, but which may cause similar unbalancing of the mind of the people. It is no use, therefore, providing for one contingency and leaving the other contingencies untouched, by the amendment which prof. Shah has moved. Therefore, it seems to me that on the whole it is much better to leave the situation as it is set out in the Draft Constitution. *CAD, Vol. VIII, 18th May 1949, p. 85. †Ibid., p. 88. 556 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

Mr. President : Then I put the whole article as amended by Dr. Ambedkar’s amendment. The question is : “ That article 68, as amended, stand part of the Constitution.” The Motion was adopted. Article 68 as amended was added to the Constitution. ARTICLE 68-A *Mr. President : Now I come to the new article sought to be put in article 68-A. Dr. Ambedkar. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Mr. President, Sir, I beg to move: “ That the following new article be inserted after article 68 :— ‘ 68-A. A person shall not be qualified to be chosen to fill a seat in Parliament unless he— (a) is a citizen of India; (b) is, in the case of a seat in the Council of States, not less than thirty-five years of age and, in the case of a seat in the House of the People, not less than twenty-five years of age, and (c) possesses such other qualifications as may be prescribed in this behalf by or under any law made by Parliament.’ ” Sir, the object of the article is to prescribe qualifications for a person who wants to be a candidate at an election. Generally, the rule is that a person who is a voter, merely by reason of the fact that he is a voter, becomes entitled to stand as a candidate for election. In this article, it is proposed that while being a voter is an essential qualification for being a candidate a voter who wishes to be a candidate must also satisfy some additional qualifications. These additional qualifications are laid down in this new article 68-A. I think the House will agree that it is desirable that a candidate who actually wishes to serve in the Legislature should have some higher qualifications than merely being a voter. The functions that he is required to discharge in the House require experience, certain amount of knowledge and practical experience in the affairs of the world, and I think if these additional qualifications are accepted, we shall be able to secure the proper sort of candidates who would be able to serve the House better than a mere ordinary voter might do. ***** †Shri T. T. Krishnamachari : ...Much has been made about this rather trifling point by saying that the amendment of Dr. Ambedkar is mischievous and iniquitous. I do hope that the House would realise that *CAD, Vol. VIII, 18th May 1949, p. 89. †Ibid., p. 94. 557DRAFT CONSTITUTION