Vol. 13 · pages 856–860

823DRAFT CONSTITUTION *The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I do not think there is any necessity to offer any remarks in reply. The motion was adopted. [Part VIIIA and articles 215A and 215B were added to the Constitution] ARTICLE 250 †The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I move :— “That in sub-clause (c) of clause (1) of article 250, after the word ‘railway’ a comma and the word ‘sea’ be inserted.” Sir, I move my next amendment also. “That in clause (2) of article 250, for the words ‘revenues of India’ the words ‘Consolidated Fund of India’ be substituted.” Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad : ...At present there is a Bill before the Legislature for charging estate duty. Here we are legislating for a long time. Therefore we should have both estate or succession duty. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Succession duty is covered by (a) which says ‘Duties in respect of succession to property’. Why repeat that in (b) ? Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad : The two might have been combined. ***** ‡Mr. Vice-President : ...Anyway, does Dr. Ambedkar want to say anything ? The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I do not want to say anything. Mr. Vice-President : I will not put the amendments to the House. [Both the amendments of Dr. Ambedkar, mentioned above, were adopted. Other amendments were rejected. Article 250 as amended was added to the Constitution.] ARTICLE 277 The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I beg to move : “That article 277 be re-numbered as clause (1) of article 277, and to the said article as so re-numbered the following clause be added :— ‘(2) Every order made under clause (1) of this article shall, as soon as may be after it is made, be laid before each House of Parliament.’” This article 277 is a consequential article. It lays down what shall be the financial consequences of the issue of an emergency proclamation by the President. Clause (1) of the article says that provisions relating to financial arrangements between provinces and the Centre may be * CAD, Vol. IX, dated 19th August 1949, p. 495. † Ibid., pp. 499-500. ‡Ibid., p. 504.

824 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES modified by the President by order during the period of the emergency. It was felt that it was not proper to give the President this absolute and unrestricted power to modify the financial arrangements between the Provinces and the States and that the Parliament should also have a say in the matter. Consequently it is now proposed to add clause (2) to article 277 whereby it is provided that any order made by the President varying the arrangements shall be laid before each House of Parliament. It follows that after the matter is placed before the Parliament. Parliament will take such action as it deems proper, which the President will be bound to carry out. ***** *The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay : General) : Mr. Vice-President, Sir, I have given as close an attention as it is possible to give to the amendment moved by my honourable Friend Pandit Kunzru, and I am sorry to say that I do not see eye to eye with him, because I feel that in a large measure his amendment seems to be quite unnecessary. Let us begin by having an idea as to what financial relations between the Centre and the provinces are normally going to be, I think it is clear from the articles which have already been passed that the provinces will be drawing upon the Centre in the normal course of things : (1) proceeds of income-tax under article 251 ; (2) a share of the central excise duties under article 253 ; and (3) certain grants and subventions under article 255. I am not speaking of the jute duty because it stands on a separate footing and has been statutorily guaranteed. Let us also have an idea as to what the article as proposed by me proposes to do. What the article proposes to do is this, that it should be open to the President when an emergency has been proclaimed to have the power to reallocate the proceeds of the income-tax, the excise duties and the grants which the Centre would be making under the provisions of article 255. The article, as proposed by me, gives the President discretion to modify the allocations under these three heads. That is the position of the draft article as presented to the House by the Drafting Committee. Now, what does my Friend Pandit Kunzru propose to do by his amendment ? If I have understood him correctly, he does not differ from the Drafting Committee in leaving with the President complete discretion to modify two of the three items to winch I have made reference, that * CAD, Vol. IX, dated 20th August 1949, pp. 520-23.

825DRAFT CONSTITUTION is to say, he is prepared to leave with the President full and complete discretion to modify any allocation made to the provinces by the Centre out of the proceeds of the excise duty and the grants made by the Centre under article 255. If I understood him correctly, he would have no difficulty if the President, by order, completely wiped off any share that the Centre was bound to give in normal times to the provinces out of the proceeds of the excise duties and the grants made by the Centre. Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru (United Provinces : General) : I never said any such thing. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Your amendment is limited only to the income-tax. That is what I am trying to point out. You do not by your amendment, in any way suggest that there should be any different method of dealing with the proceeds of the excise duties or the grants made by the Centre under article 255. Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru : The reason why I cast my amendment in that form is this. In so far as the distribution of the proceeds of any taxes depends on a statute passed by Parliament that power cannot be taken away from Parliament but it does not belong to the President. But so far as income-tax is concerned, the Government of India Act, 1935, envisaged the transfer of the full share of the provinces to them within a certain period and allowed the Governor-General, in case there was an emergency, to delay the transfer to the provinces and thus lengthen the total period in which the provinces were to get their full share. That was the only reason ; the inference drawn by my honourable Friend is completely unjustified. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I am entitled to draw the most natural inference from the amendment as tabled. Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru : The Honourable Member is completely misunderstanding me. Under my amendment the President will have no power to alter the distribution of the proceeds of the Union excise duties. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I am sorry the honourable Member did not make the matter clear in his amendment. And if he wants to put a new construction now and make a fundamental change the amendment should have been such as to give me perfect notice as to what was intended. There is nothing in the amendment to suggest that the honourable Member wants to alter the provisions of articles 253 and 255. It may be an after thought but I cannot deal with after thoughts ; I have to deal with the amendment as it is tabled. Therefore, as I read the amendment, my construction is very natural.

826 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru : The honourable Member is utterly unjustified. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : That is the honourable Member’s opinion. My reading is that something new is being put forward now. Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru : The honourable Member is misrepresenting me and knows that he is doing so. The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : The Honourable Member is misrepresenting his own thoughts. Therefore, as I understand it, there is no question of my honourable Friend suggesting any alteration in the system of modifying the proceeds of the excise duty and the grant. The only question that he raised is the question of the modification of the allocation of income-tax during an emergency. Even so what do I find ? If I again read his amendment correctly, he is: not altogether taking away the discretion which is left to the President in the matter of the modification of the allocation of the income-tax. All that he is doing is that if the President was to make a modification of the allocation of the income-tax as contained in the previous order, then the President should proceed in a certain manner which he has stated in his amendment. In other words, the only difference between the draft clause as put by me and the amendment of my honourable Friend Pandit Kunzru is this that, so far as the discretion of the President is concerned, it should not be left unregulated, that it should be regulated in the manner winch he suggests. My reply to that is this : Where is the reason to believe that in modifying or exercising the power of the President to modify the provisions relating to the distribution of the income-tax he will act so arbitrarily as to take away altogether the proceeds of the incometax ? Where is the ground for believing that the President will not even adopt the suggestion made by my honourable Friend. Pandit Kunzru, in the amendment as he has put it ? There is no reason to suppose or to make such an arbitrary suggestion that the President is going to wipe out altogether the total proceeds which the provinces are entitled to receive under the allocation. After all the President will be a reasonable man ; he will know that to a very considerable extent the proceeds of the income-tax do form part of the revenues of the provinces ; and he will also know that, notwithstanding the fact that there is an emergency, it is as much necessary to help the Centre as it is necessary to keep the provinces going.

827DRAFT CONSTITUTION Therefore in my judgment there is no necessity to tie down the hands of the President to act in a particular manner in the way suggested by the amendment of my Friend Pandit Kunzru. It might be that the President on consultation with the provinces or on consultation with the Finance Commission or any other expert authority might find some other method of dealing with the proceeds of the income-tax in an emergency, and the suggestion that he might have then might prove far better than what my Friend Pandit Kunzru is suggesting. I therefore think that it would be very wrong to tie down the hands of the President to act in a particular manner and not leave him the liberty or discretion to act in many other ways that might suggest themselves to him. I suggest that it is better to leave the draft as elastic as it is proposed to be done by the Drafting Committee ; no advantage will be gained by accepting the amendment of my Friend Pandit Kunzru. As I have said, I have made another amendment in the original draft which left the matter entirely and completely to the discretion of the President and Parliament had no say in the matter. By the new amendment I have proposed it is now possible for Parliament to consider any order that the President may make with regard to the allocation of the revenues ; and therefore if the President is doing something which is likely to be very deleterious or injurious to the interests of the provinces’, surely many representatives in Parliament who would be drawn from the provinces and who would undoubtedly not forget the interests of the provinces would be in a position to set matters right. I therefore think that the original arrangement should be maintained by virtue of the fact that it is far more elastic than what is suggested by my honourable Friend Pandit Kunzru. [Amendment of Dr. Ambedkar was adopted and that of Pandit Kunzru was negatived. Article 277, as amended was added to the Constitution.] ARTICLE 280 *The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I move : “That for article 280, the following article be substituted :— ‘280. (1) Where a Proclamation of Emergency is in operation, the President may by order suspension of the rights declare that the right to move any court for the enforcement of such of the rights conferred by part III of this Constitution as may be mentioned in the order and all proceeedings pending in any court for the enforcement of the rights so mentioned shall remain suspended for the period during which the Proclamation is in force or for such shorter period as may be specified in the Order. Suspension of the rights guaranteed by article 25 of the Constitution during emergencies. * CAD, Vol. IX, dated 19th August 1949, p. 523 .