Vol. 13 · pages 696–700

663DRAFT CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 205 *Mr. President : The House will now consider article 205. There is an amendment to this by Dr. Ambedkar, No. 2676. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I move: “That for article 205, the following be substituted ;— Officers and servants and the expenses of High Courts, ‘205. (1) Appointments of officers and servants of a High court shall he made by the Chief Justice of the Court or such other judge or officer of the Court as he may direct: Provided that the Governor of the State in which the High Court has its principal seat may by rule require that in such cases as may he specified in the rule, no person not already attached to the Court shall he appointed to any office connected with the Court save after consultation with the State Public service Commission. (2) Subject to the provisions of any law made by the Legislature of the State, the conditions of service of officers and servants of a High Court shall he such as may be prescribed by rules made by the Chief Justice of the Court or by some other judge or officer of the Court authorised by the Chief Justice to make rules for the purpose : Provided that the salaries, allowance and pensions payable to or in respect of such officers and servants shall be fixed by the Chief Justice of the Court in consultation with the Governor of the State in which the High Court has its principal seat. (3) The administrative expenses of a High Court, including all salaries, allowances and pensions payable to or in respect of the officers and servants of the Court and the salaries and allowances of the Judges of the Court, shall he charged upon the revenues of the State, and any fees or other moneys taken by the Court shall form part of those revenues.’” Mr. President : There is an amendment by Mr. Kapoor. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I have an amendment to this amendment. If you will allow me I will move it. It is on page 3 of List II. Mr. President : You can move it. — The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir I move : “That with reference to amendment No. 2676 of the List of Amendments, for the proviso to clause (2) of the proposed article 205, the following proviso be substituted.— ‘Provided that the rules made under this clause shall, so far as they relate to salaries, allowances, leave or pensions, require the approval of the Governor of the State in which the High Court has its principal seat’.” Sir, these provisions are exactly the same as the provisions for the Supreme Court. Mr. President : That covers your amendment, Mr. Kapoor. Shri Jaspat Roy Kapoor (United Provinces : General) : Yes, Sir, it obviates the necessity for moving my amendment. [Dr. Ambedkar’s amendment was adopted. Article 205, as amended, was added to the Constitution.] *CAD, Vol. VIII, 8th June, pp. 710-20.

664 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES ARTICLE 206 *The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I move that this article be deleted. Article 206 was deleted from the Constitution. ARTICLE 90— Contd. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I would request you now to take the financial article. We may go back to article 90 which was under discussion. Mr. President : We had a number of amendments to tills article which were moved that day before we adjourned discussion. They are amendments Nos. 3, 4 and 6 standing in the name of Dr. Ambedkar. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I move : “That for sub-clauses (c) and (d) of clause (1) of article 90, the following sub-clauses be substituted : ‘(c) the custody of the Consolidated Fund or the Contingency Fund of India, die payment of moneys into or the withdrawal of moneys from any such fund; (d) the appropriation of moneys out of the Consolidated Fund of India;’” Sir, Amendment No. 4 is covered by amendment No. 3 and so I am not moving it. Sir, I also move : “That in sub-clauses (e) and (f) of clause (l) of article 90, for the words ‘revenues of India’, the words ‘Consolidated Fund of India’ be substituted.” Sir, Amendment No. 5 standing in the name of Pandit Kunzru is also covered and therefore, it is necessary. Sir, with your permission, I would like at this stage to make a short introductory speech in order to give the House an idea of some of the changes which are not covered by the specific amendments which I have moved just now, but which relate to the changes that have been made in the financial procedure to be observed with regard to financial matters. The changes that we have made by the various amendments that I have proposed to move in connection with tills matter are these. The first change that has been made is that there shall be no taxation without law. If any levy is to be made upon the people, the sanction must be that of law. That is provided for in article 248 which will come at a later stage. In order to give the House a complete idea of what we are *CAD, Vol. VIII, 8th June 1949, pp. 721-26.

665DRAFT CONSTITUTION doing, I mention the matter now. There was no such provision in the existing Draft Constitution. The second thing which is proposed to be done is to introduce the idea of what is called a Consolidated Fund. That will be done by the new article 248-A which will come at a later stage. We also wish to provide for the establishment of a Contingency Fund which Parliament may want to establish. That will be done by the new article 248-B. I do not think that any explanation is necessary for the first provision, namely, that there should be no tax except by law. It is a very salutary provision and the executive should not have any power of levy upon the people unless they obtain the sanction of Parliament. With regard to the Consolidated Fund, it is really in a sense not a new idea at all; it is merely a new wording. The existing wording is “Public Account of the Governor General of India.” If Honourable Members will refer to a volume called the Compilation of Treasury Rules, Volume I, they will find that the Public Account is also referred to as the Consolidated Fund. I shall read the definition. “Public Account of the Central Government means the Consolidated Fund into which moneys, received on account of the revenues of the Governor-General as defined in section 136 of the Act are paid and credited and from which all disbursements by or on behalf of Government are made.” Therefore, the use of the word “Consolidated Fund” is merely a change in nomenclature because that word is already used as an equivalent of the Public Account of the Central Government. There is also an important idea behind this notion of a Consolidated Fund. Tills notion of a Consolidated Fund, as Members might know, arose in England some time about 1777. The object why the Consolidated Fund was created in England was tills. Originally Parliament voted taxes to the King, leaving the King to collect and spend it on such purposes as he liked. Oftentimes, the King spent the money for purposes quite different from the purposes for which he had asked it. Parliament could have no control after having voted the taxes. At a later stage. Parliament followed another procedure, namely, to levy a tax and to appropriate the proceeds of that tax for a certain purpose, with the result that when they came to passing the budget, there was practically no money left, all the taxes having been appropriated to specific purposes. Nothing was left for the general purposes of the

666 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES budget. In order to avoid his squandering of money, so to say, by appropriation of individual taxes for particular purposes, it was necessary to see that all revenues raised by taxes or received in other ways were, without being appropriated to any particular purpose, collected together into the one fund so that Parliament when it conies to decide upon the Budget has with it a fund which it could disburse. In other words, a Consolidated Fund is a necessary tiling in order to prevent the proceeds of taxes being frittered away by laws made by Parliament in individual purposes without regard to the general necessity of the people at all. I therefore submit that the House will have no difficulty in accepting the provision for a Consolidated Fund because it is a very necessary thing. If I may say so, there is no Constitution which does not provide for a Consolidated Fund. If you compare the constitution of Australia, Canada, South Africa or Ireland, or any Constitution, you will find that they all have a provision which says that all funds raised by taxes or otherwise shall be pooled together in a Consolidated Fund. We are therefore not making any departure at all. Then, the other provision which we seek to make is to provide for an Appropriation Act in the place of a certified Schedule by the President. Honourable Members, if they refer to article 94 of the Draft Constitution, will see what the present procedure is. First of all, what happens is this : the President, that is to say, the Government of the day is required by article 92 to present a Financial Statement to Parliament in a certain form, which form is laid down in sub-clause (2) of article 94, dividing the expenditure into two categories, one category containing the expenditure charged upon the revenues of India and the other category of expenditure not charged upon the revenues of India, that is to say, upon the Consolidated Fund. After that is presented, then comes the next stage which is provided for in article 93. Under article 93 what happens is this : Parliament proceeds to discuss the Financial Statement submitted to it, head by head, sub-head by sub-head, item by item and either agrees with the provisions made as to the amount by the executive or reduces it. This thing is done by resolutions passed by the House on any cut motion. After that is done, under the present procedure, the provisions of article 94 apply, namely, that the President then certifies what the Assembly has done in the

667DRAFT CONSTITUTION matter of making provision for the various heads of expenditure placed before it by Parliament. The new provision is that the procedure regarding certification by the President should be replaced by a proper Appropriation Act, passed by the legislature. The argument in favour of substituting the procedure for an Appropriation Bill for the provisions contained in article 94 of the Draft Constitution is this. The legislature votes the supplies. It is, therefore, proper that the legislature should pass what it has done in the form of an Act. Why should the work done by the legislature in the matter of voting supplies be left to the President to be certified by an executive act, so to say ? That is the principal point that we have to consider. In the matter of Finance, Parliament is supreme, because, no expenditure can be incurred unless it has been sanctioned by Parliament under the provisions of article 93. If Parliament has sanctioned any particular expenditure on any particular head, then the proper authority to certify what it has done with regard to expenditure on any particular head is the Parliament and not the President. Therefore, the procedure of an Appropriation Act is substituted for the procedure contained in article 94 of this Draft Constitution. I may also mention that article 94 was appropriate under the Government of India Act of 1935 for the simple reason that the Governor-General had a right to certify what expenditure was necessary for him for discharging his functions which were in his discretion and in his individual judgment. The expenditure which the Governor-General wanted to incur in respect of functions which were in his discretion and in his judgment were outside the purview and outside the power of Parliament. He was entitled to change the amount, to alter that, to add to them. It was consequently necessary that the Governor-General should be the ultimate authority for certification because he had independent power of making such budget provision as he wanted to make in order to discharge his special functions. Under our new Constitution the President has no functions at all either in his discretion or in his individual judgment. He has therefore no part to play in the assignment of sums for expenditure for certain services. That being so, the certification procedure is entirely out of place under the new Constitution. I might also say that the appropriation procedure is a procedure which is employed in all Parliamentary Governments in