Vol. 13 · pages 846–850

813DRAFT CONSTITUTION went to Pakistan with the intention of residing permanently there, loses his right of citizenship in India. It is to provide for these two things that we converted this natural assumption into a rule of law and laid down that anyone who has gone to Pakistan after 1st March shall not be entitled to say that he still has a domicile in India. According to article 5 where domicile is an essential ingredient in citizenship, those persons having gone to Pakistan lost their domicile and their citizenship. Now I come to an exception. There are people who, having left India for Pakistan, have subsequently returned to India. Well, there again our rule is that anyone who returns to India is not to be deemed a citizen unless he satisfies certain special circumstances. Going to Pakistan and returning to India does not make any alteration in the general rule we have laid down, namely that such a person shall not be a citizen. The exception is this : as my honourable Friend Shri N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar said, in the course of the negotiations between the two Governments, the Government of India and the Government of Pakistan, they came to some arrangement whereby the Government of India agreed to permit certain persons who went from India to Pakistan to return to India and allowed them to return not merely as temporary travellers or as merchants or for some other purpose of tempoary character to visit a sick relation, but expressly permitted them to return to India and to settle permanently and to remain in India permanently. We have got such persons in India now. The question therefore is whether the rule which I have said we have enunciated in this article, not to permit anyone who has gone from India to Pakistan after the 1st March 1947, should have an exception or not. It was felt and speaking for myself I submit very rightly felt that when a Government has given an undertaking to a person to permit him to return to his old domicile and to settle there permanently, it would not be right to take away from that person the eligibility to become a citizen. As my Friend, Mr. Gopalaswami Ayyangar has said, the class of people covered by this category, having regard to the very large population both of Hindus and Muslims we have, is very small, something between two to three thousand. It would, in my judgement look very invidious, it would in my judgement look a breach of faith if we now said that we should not allow these people whom our-own Government, whether rightly or wrongly, allowed to come away from pakistan for the purpose of permanent residents here, to have this prividege. It would be quite open to this House to bring in a Bill to prevent the Government of India from continuing the permit

814 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES system hereafter. That is within the privilege and power of this House, but I do not think that the House will be acting rightly or in accordance with what I call public conscience if it says tht these people who, as I said, are so small, who have come on the assurance of our own Government to make their home here, should be denied the right of citizenship. Sir, I do not think therefore that there is any substance in the criticism that has been levelled against these articles and I hope the House will accept them as they are. SECTION 291 of Government of India Act, 1935 (Amendment) Bill *The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Mr. Vice-President, Sir, I find from the speeches to which I have listened so far that there is a great deal of misunderstanding as to what this particular Bill, particularly clause 4 of it, proposes to do. I think it is desirable at the outset to tell the House what exactly is intended to be done by clause 4. In order to put the House in a proper frame of mind—if I may say so without meaning any offence—I should like to draw the attention of the House to the wording of Section 291 of the Government of India Act as it was in operation before it was adapted after the Independence Act. Now I shall read just a few lines of that Section 291. “In so fur as provision with respect to matters hereinafter mentioned is not made by this Act. His Majesty in Council (and I want to emphasise these words His Majesty in Council) may from time to time make provision with respect to those matters or any of them. etc.. etc.” The first tiling that I would like to draw the attention of the House is this that in clause 4 of this Bill the matters which are enumerated from (b) to (j) are exactly the matters which are enumerated in the old Section 291. Therefore, it has to be understood at the outset that this clause, clause 4, is not making any fundamental change in the provisions contained in the original Section 291. The matters for which the Governor-General is going to be given powers by the provisions of the new Sectiion 291, as embodied in this Bill, are the same which were given by the original Section 291 to His Majesty in Council. (An Honourable Member : No.) I hope that this will be now clear to everybody and I do not think there can be any doubt on it, for anyone who compares the different clauses in this Bill and in the original Section 291 will have all his doubts removed. * CAD. Vol. IX, dated 18th August 1949, pp. 465-68.

815DRAFT CONSTITUTION The question, therefore, may be asked as to why is it that we are now, giving the power to the Governor-General. The difficulty, if I may say so, is this. Somehow when the Government of India Act, 1935, came to be adapted after the Independence Act, there was, in my judgment, at any rate, a slip that took place and that slip was this, that this power which originally vested in His Majesty in Council, logically speaking, ought to have been transferred to the Governor-General, because the GovernorGeneral under the Dominion law stepped into the shoes of His Majesty in Council. But, unfortunately, as I said, what happened was this that in adapting this Section 291, the power which we are now giving to the Governor-General was given to the local Legislature, I will read that adapted Section 291. I ask my friends who have been agitating over this to read the section as adapted. This is how it reads : “In so far as provision with respect to matters herein mentioned is not made in this Act in relation lo any Povincial Legislature, provision may he made by Act of that Legislature with respect to those matters or any of them, etc.. etc.” It has now been discovered that that was an error, that really speaking, when the section was adapted at that stage, the Governor-General should have been endowed with those powers, because those powers under the provisions of Section 291 were vested in His Majesty in Council and not in any local legislature what we are doing by this Bill is merely to restore the old position as it existed under the unadapted Section 291. I, therefore, want to submit that any criticism which has been levelled by any Member of the Assembly that there was some kind of a deep-laid game in order to upset the constitution for political motives is absolutely unwarranted. All that we are trying to do is to correct a slip that had taken place then. I come to the next point, namely, the addition of the words “the composition of the Chamber or Chambers of the legislature.” I quite agree……* Dr. P. S. Deshmukh : May I ask one question, Sir ? Does not the alteration of the words “in so far as provision with respect to matters hereinafter mentioned is not made by this Act”, the ommission of these words and making of these provisions applicable to…….. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : That is what exactly I am explaining. As I said, the only difference that will now be found between the original article 291 as unadapted and the proposed new clause is this that it is proposed by this new article to give power to the GovernorGeneral to alter the provisions with regard to the composition of the Legislature. I admit that that is a change. *Dots indicate interruption.

816 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Dr. P. S. Deshmukh : Which includes schedules 5 and 6. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Oh, yes ; that is quite true. I admit without any kind of reservation that that is a change which is being made. Now the question is why should we make that change. The reason why we have to make the change in order to give the Governor-General the power even to alter the composition is to be found in the situation in which we find ourselves. Honourable Members will remember that there has been a considerable shifting of the population on account of partition. The population of East Punjab is surely not in any stereotyped condition. Refugees are coming and going. On the 1st April the population numbered so much ; six months thereafter it may number something quite different from what it was then. Similarly with regard to West Bengal and many other provinces where refugees have been taken by the Government of India under their scheme of rehabilitation or the refugees themselves have voluntarily travelled from one area to another. Obviously you cannot allow the provisions contained in the Fifth and Sixth Schedules with regard to the numbers in the legislature to remain what they were when we know as a matter of fact that the population has lost all relation to the numbers then prescribed in the Schedules. It is therefore in order to take into account the shifting of the population that power is given to the Governor-General to alter even the Schedules winch deal with the composition of the legislature. I hope my honourable Friends will now understand that in giving this additional power of making an order with regard to the composition of the Chamber or Chambers the intention is to permit the GovernorGeneral to make an order which will bring the strength of the different legislatures in the provinces affected to suit the numbers in those provinces. There is no nefarious purpose. Dr. P. S. Deshmukh : You had two full years to rectify this position. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : That is a different matter. I am only explaining why these provisions are being introduced by this new clause. I have said that the other provisions are merely reproductions of what is contained in the original Section 291. This power is not being taken for a wanton or an unnecessary purpose nor is it intended to be used for anything other than a bona fide purpose. Therefore having regard to these circumstances my submission is that clause 4 is a perfectly justifiable proposal, both from the point of view of conferring these powers, which originally vested in His Majesty in Council, to be vested

817DRAFT CONSTITUTION in the Governor-General who is his successor and to give him additional power to alter the composition, because the pattern of the numbers in the different provinces have changed from the 15th August 1947.I quite realise that there has been an error in the Statement of Objects and Reasons where unfortunately a particular reference has been made to West Bengal. I should like to assert that this clause has been intended as a general provision which may be used by the GovernorGeneral for rectifying any of the matters with regard to any province, not particularly West Bengal; and I think that was against somehow a slip which ought not to have taken place. Members of the House have picked up that particular wording of that particular clause where a pointed reference has been made to West Bengal in order to charge the Government with malafide, with having some kind of a bad motive towards the legislature in West Bengal. As I said, it is nothing of the kind. These clauses are general; they may be used if a situation arises : which calls far their use in West Bengal. They may be used for my province of Bombay where probably today, at any rate, no such circumstance appears. Therefore from that unfortunate statement—if I may say so—no conclusion ought to be drawn that there is any kind of underhand dealing so far as this clause is concerned. Shri Suresh Chandra Majumdar (West Bengal : General) : Is it not possible to drop the words “West Bengal” ? The Honurable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I have been telling my honourable Friends that the Statement of Objects and Reasons is not a part of the Act and therefore there can be no amendment moved to the deletion of any word or clause or sentence in the Statement of Objects and Reasons. As soon as this Bill becomes an Act, that Statement of Objects and Reasons will be thrown into the dustbin. It is different from a Preamble and I want Members of the House to concentrate on the Preamble where there is no such reference to West Bengal. Therefore my submission is that there is really nothing to quarrel with in this particular clause. In the first place it restores the original provision as it existed in the Government of India Act, 1935, in its unadapted condition, and secondly it proposes to give power which it has become necessary to give because of the altered position in the provinces. An Honourable Member : Sir, I move that the question be now put. Shri H. V. Kamath : Sir, on a point of order, Dr. Ambedkar has raised fresh points which we wish to discuss and under rule 33 of our Rules you may hold that there has not been sufficient debate, and so refuse to accept this motion for closure.