Vol. 15 · pages 256–260

239PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES Dr. Ambedkar : I beg to move : “That the Bill, as amended, be passed.” Mr. Speaker : Motion moved : “That the Bill, as amended, be passed.” The motion was adopted. REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (No. 2) BILL *The Minister of Law (Dr. Ambedkar) : I beg to move for leave to introduce a Bill to provide for the conduct of elections to the Houses of Parliament and to the House or Houses of the Legislature of each State, the qualifications and disqualifications for membership of those Houses, the corrupt and illegal Practices and other offences at or in connection with such elections and the decision of doubts and disputes arising out of or in connection with such elections. The motion was adopted. Dr. Ambedkar : I introduce the Bill. REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (No. 2) BILL ** The Minister of Law (Dr. Ambedkar) : I beg to move : “That the Bill to provide for the conduct of elections to the Houses of Parliament and to the House or Houses of the Legislature of each State, the qualifications and disqualifications for membership of those Houses, the corrupt and illegal practices and other offences at or in connection with such elections and the decision of doubts and disputes arising out of or in connection with such elections, be referred to a Select Committee consisting of Shri M. Ananthasayanam Ayyangar, Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava, Shri Frank Anthony, Pandit Hriday Nath Kunzru, Shri M. A. Haque, Shri Mahavir Tyagi, Shri Biswanath Das, Shri Sarangadhar Das, Sardar Bhopinder Singh Man, Srijut Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri, Shri Girija Sankar Guha, Shri Khandubhai K. Desai, Shri S. Sivan Pillay, Shri Chandrika Ram, Shri T. R. Deogirikar, Shri P. Basi Reddi, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Shri Hussain Imam, Shri M. V. Rama Rao, Shri Gokulbhai Daulatram Bhatt, Shri Raj Bahadur, Kumari Padmaja Naidu, Shri S. Nijalingappa, Shri Ramnath Goenka, * P. D., Vol. 7, Part II, 18th December 1950, p. 1834. * P. D., Vol. 7, Part II, 22nd December 1950, pp. 2283-91.

240 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Shri Hari Vishnu Kamath, Shri S. N. Mishra, Shri L. Krishnaswami Bharathi, Shri Surendra Mohan Ghose, Shri Krishna Kant Vyas, Shri M. L. Dwivedi and the Mover, with instructions to report by the end of the third week after the commencement of the next session of Parliament.” Pandit Maitra (West Bengal) : What will be the quorum? Dr. Ambedkar : The quorum, I understand, is provided by rules, namely, one-third. Sir, this Bill, as members must have noticed, is a very long Bill and contains 163 clauses. It would take me much beyond the time that is available now for the consideration of the motion, if I were to enter upon a full and complete description of the various provisions contained in these 163 clauses. This Bill has already been in the hands of Members of Parliament for at least three or four days and I am sure that they must have found time to go over the clauses of the Bill and to understand the main purport of the clauses incorporated therein. I do not think, therefore, I am called upon to give an exhaustive expose of the matters included in this Bill. I, therefore, propose to be very brief. The House will recall that at an earlier Session of the Parliament a Bill for the Peoples Representation Act, 1950, was passed by this House. That Bill dealt with the following maters : (1) allocation of seats between the different States for their representation in the lower Chamber and the upper Chamber; (2) delimitation of constituencies for the purpose of the election to the House of the People and to the Legislative Assembly of the various States; (3) qualifications of voters at such elections and (4) preparation of the electoral roll and constituencies. The following matters were left out, namely, (1) qualifications and dis-qualifications for candidates to and for the members of the legislature; (2) the actual conduct of elections; (3) corrupt and illegal practices; (4) the definition of election offences and (5) the constitution of the Election Tribunal for the purpose of deciding election disputes. I should have been very happy myself if the provisions of the last Bill and the provisions contained in this Bill had

241PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES been incorporated in a single Statute, so that hon. Members would have had the facility of carrying one single Statute covering all matters affecting the representation of the people in the Central Legislature as well as in the State Legislatures. But, unfortunately, it was not possible to do so, because it would have taken a very long time, it was felt better to cut up the matter into two parts, that is to say, to provide for the constituencies, for the voters’ qualifications and so on, in an earlier measure, so that the Election Commission would have been in a position to start work with a view to putting through the elections by April or May. That was the reason why a certain part of the matter which was, so to say, integral with matters contained in this Bill were severed and put into an earlier piece of legislation. Now, Sir, as I have said, the present Bill deals with five matters. I am sure the House will not expect me to go over the whole gamut of the provisions relating to each of these five parts. I will take up certain important provisions which I am sure the House will be interested to know at this stage. Now, first of all, I will take up the question of the qualifications and disqualifications for candidates. So far as the elections for candidates is concerned, we do not impose any additional qualification except that he must be a voter, that is to say, he must be a citizen, he must be of 21 years’ age and must have resided in a particular constituency for the qualifying period. Every voter will, therefore be entitled to stand as a candidate without requiring to fulfil any additional qualification. One other matter to which I would like to draw attention in this connection is this, that in the present Bill we have removed all residential qualifications. At one time, hon. Members will remember, that a candidate was not only required to be a voter, but was also required to be a resident in that particular constituency. Otherwise, he could not stand. It was felt that in view of the fact that we are now a united people under one single Constitution, recognising no barriers of caste, creed, community or provincial

242 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES barriers, it was desirable to provide that any person who is entitled to be a candidate may stand anywhere in India, notwithstanding the fact that he does not belong to that province or to that constituency. [MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER in the Chair ] So that under the provisions of the Bill a person may not only stand as a candidate in his own constituency but he may stand as a candidate in any other constituency in his State, nay, he may stand as a candidate in any other State where he has not resided, provided he is a qualified voter in some particular constituency. That is with regard to qualifications. With regard to disqualifications what we have done is this. Hitherto the law relating to disqualification was scattered in different statutes. Part of it was laid down in the Government of India (Provincial Elections, Corrupt Practices and Election Petitions) Order of 1936 issued by the Secretary of State after the passing of the Government of India Act, 1935. Other provisions were to be found in the Indian Elections Offences Enquiry Act, 1920. It was felt that it would be much better to have a consolidated list of disqualifications in this very Act. And that is what has been done. I may here mention that it was my proposal that the holding of a contract with the Government should also be a matter for disqualification. Such a provision exists in the U. K. Act. But I thought that it might be better to consult the Select Committee on this particular provision whether the disqualification should be for standing as a candidate or whether the disqualification should be limited to continuing to be a Member of Parliament. As I myself was not certain which course to adopt I have left the question open to be decided by the Select Committee. Now I come to another matter, namely, the conduct of elections. In this connection I would like to draw the attention of the House to certain new features that are contained in the Bill with regard to nomination. As the House will remember, under the existing law the question of the validity

243PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES of the nomination of a candidate can be canvassed, discussed and decided upon on an election petition. I have always felt that that is a very harsh procedure. The question of nomination is so to say a preliminary issue and there is no reason why this preliminary issue should be kept hanging, allowing the whole election to take place, forcing people to spend their time and their energy in contesting the election, and subsequently somebody comes up and says that the elected candidate has not been validly nominated. So that, without getting into the merits of the election the practice is followed and the whole thing is disposed of on a preliminary issue. I think it is right that in the matter of election petitions it is desirable to separate this preliminary issue from the other issue as to whether the election is valid on other grounds or not. I have therefore proposed in this Bill that this issue shall be treated as a preliminary issue and the Election Commission shall make some provision for the purpose of constituting some tribunal to which any dispute as regards the validity of nomination will be referred and disposed of finally : so. that when the election takes place no such issue could be raised before the tribunal. I am sure this is a very salutary provision. I am sorry, on the advice of the Election Commissioner, it would not be possible to give effect to this provision at the time of the first election, because he thinks that he has not got sufficient time to think about forming an ad hoc tribunal which may be set up to come and give relief to the contestants. But, as I say, if the Select Committee thinks that this should also be applied then I would have no objection. Under the conduct of elections I should also like to draw attention to another important matter, namely, method of voting. This Bill provides that some constituencies shall be two member constituencies. That is inevitable in view of the fact that the Constitution provides for the reservation of seats for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. The fact that you have reserved constituencies presupposes at least two-member constituencies. Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava (Punjab) : Why? It is not inevitable.