Vol. 15 · pages 526–530

509PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 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, as reported by the Select Committee, be taken into consideration.” In the few observations that I propose to make in support of the motion, I wish to draw the attention of the House to the changes made by the Select Committee in the Bill and also to the changes proposed by some of the Members of the Select Committee in their minutes of dissent. The House will agree that the Bill is a very big one, extending to about 169 clauses. The Select Committee has made changes in various clauses of the original Bill and it is hardly possible for me to deal with every single change proposed by the Committee. I think it would be enough if I were to draw the attention of the House to the most important changes which have been made by the Select Committee. So far as I see, I find that the Select Committee has made four important changes in the original Bill. The first clause in which important changes have been introduced is clause 7, which deals with the disqualifications for being chosen and for being a Member of Parliament or of a State Legislature. The House will recall that the clause as it stood originally had only three cases of disqualification in it. The first disqualification in the original Bill was founded on a conviction for an electoral offence, either connected with corrupt practice or an illegal practice. The second disqualification in the Bill was founded on a conviction for *P. D., Vol. 2, Part II, 9th May 1951, pp. 8348-70.

510 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES an offence enacted by the penal law of the country as distinguished from an electoral offence, for instance, an offence under the Penal Code or some other local criminal law. The third one was the disqualification which was founded on what might be called the actual serving of a sentence during the course of the election. That will be found in the original clause 7, sub-clause (2). And the fourth was failure to lodge election expenses in accordance with the law and within the time. So far as these original proposals are concerned, the only change to which the Select Committee has made is with regard to the disqualification contained in sub-clause (2) of clause 7. [MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER in the Chair ] That provision the Select Committee has dropped. And the reason is this that the clause is unnecessary so far as a sentence is for two years or more. If the sentence is for less than two years the Committee felt that there was no necessity to enact a disqualification on that ground because, assuming that a man was elected to the House, it would still be necessary for him to obtain the permission of the House to absent himself beyond sixty days, which is the rule now, and if the House did not grant him the permission his seat might thereby be rendered vacant. On that ground the Committee felt that it was unnecessary to retain it. To this clause 7 the Committee has added four new disqualifications which are very important. The first is that the holding of a contract with Government would, under the provisions now made by the Select Committee, be a disqualification. Secondly, the holding of a licence or permit from Government for dealing in commodities which are subject to control so far as their price or movement is concerned would also be a disqualification. Thirdly, the holding of a Directorship in a company in which the Government has a share or interest would be a disqualification ; and fourthly, dismissal of a Government servant for corruption. These are the four new disqualifications which the Select Committee has added to the original clause.

511PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES Now I come to the second change which the Select Committee has made. The House will remember that there was in the original Bill a clause which was numbered 35. The object of that clause was this. The clause intended to seperate proceedings with regard to nomination from proceedings with regard to actual election. As hon. Members will remember, an election proceeding falls into two divisions. The first is the stage of nomination and the second is the stage of election. Under the law as it existed the provision was this that there was no finality to the proceedings with regard to nomination. There may be objections to nominations and yet the election could continue to its final course and it is only when an election petition was filed for challenging the result of the election that it was open to any party who was a party to the election to raise the question before the Election Tribuanal that the nomination paper of a particular candidate was wrongly admitted or that the nomination paper of a particular candidate was wrongly rejected. Then if the Election Tribunal came to the conclusion that either of the two grounds was well-founded it was open to the Election Tribunal to set aside the whole of the election. It has been felt by many persons who are interested in politics that, that was not a very fair thing, to have the whole of the election gone through with the enormous amount of expenditure which various candidates would incur and then to be ultimately faced with this solitary single issue whether the nomination paper was properly admitted or rejected and then the whole election to be set aside. It has been felt that it was a very wrong thing and that it was desirable to sever the nomination proceedings from the election proceedings and that the election should proceed after the nomination proceedings have been finalised and made conclusive so that no such issue could be raised before the Election Tribunal when the election was challenged. I personally felt that that point of view was a very good and a very sound one and that if it was possible we should treat the nomination issue as a preliminary issue, as civil lawyers call it and have it disposed of completely and finally, so that we could then proceed to real election and the challenge to the real election could be limited only either to corrupt practice or to illegal practice or to intimidation and cases of that sort in which the election was neither fair nor free.

512 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Unfortunately the Committee did not agree with that view, although, as Members will see from the Report of the Select Committee, they expressed a great deal of sympathy with the provisions contained in the original clause 35. The Committee was greatly influenced by the fact that before the nomination proceedings could be deemed to have been concluded and finally settled it would be necessary for somebody to investigate whether the questions as to qualifications and disqualifications of a candidate were properly decided. The Committee felt that if the issue of qualifications and disqualifications of candidates were to be decided before the actual election starts the interval between nomination and election might be very long and the election might not take place as expeditiously as we would all wish it to take place. That was the governing factor which led the Committee to reject the provisions contained in the original clause 35. Notwithstanding that, as hon. Members who have read the Report of the Select Committee would notice, the Committee has said that they like the provision, and, if during the passage of the Bill in the House it was possible to evolve some formula which would avoid that delay that Members feared would take place between the conclusion of the nomination proceedings and the start of the election, they would welcome such a provision. I myself have not been able to think of anything which I could at this stage put before the House. I am told that such a provision does exist in the Madras law which deals with the election of the District Local Boards. It was after a long time that I was able to get a copy of that and I have not had time to apply my mind to it. I therefore—speaking from my point of view—propose to keep this question rather open. Then I come to the third change which the Select Committee has made and that relates to the Election Tribunal. First of all I may refer to the changes made in the personnel of the Tribunal. As the House will remember, the original provisions in the Bill said that District Judges, advocates of ten years’ standing and subordinate judges might be regarded as eligible to act as Members of an Election Tribunal. The Select Committee has cut out subordinate judges. They think they

513PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES ought not be regarded as eligible for sitting on an Election Tribunal and they have added retired District Judges and retired and sitting High Court Judges as persons eligible for being appointed to an Election Tribunal. With regard to the two other matters relating to the Election Tribunal namely, the constitution of the Tribunal and the question of appeal, the Select Committee has made no change, so that the Tribunal as originally provided would continue to be a Tribunal of two members, one Chairman and one Member. Similarly the provisions with regard to appeal will also continue. As the House knows, we provide no regular appeal at all. What is proposed is that if the two members differ, there will be an automatic reference to the High Court. Then I refer to the fourth change which the Select Committee has made and which from what has happened recently, I think, is a very salutary and a very important change. The House will remember, that in the original draft Bill the power to fill casual vacancies was left to the State Governments to decide. It was a matter left entirely within their power and within their discretion. The Select Committee felt that the State Governments might not be very diligent in the matter of exercising these powers and casual vacancies might remain unfilled for a long time, depriving constituencies of their opportunity to have their representatives sitting in Parliament or in the State Legislature. The Committee has therefore decided that this power, instead of being left with the State Governments, should be vested in the Election Commission which has nothing to do with Parliament or with the State Legislature. It is he now who will fix the date of election ; it is he now who will issue writs to the constituencies for holding the election and for sending their representatives. This I think is a very salutary change. These are the four important changes which the Select Committee has made in the Bill. I will now proceed to deal with the changes proposed in the Minutes of Dissent. Analysing the Minutes of Dissent, I find that the Members who have subscribed to their Minutes of Dissent propose 10 different changes to be made in the Bill, as reported by the Select Committee. The first change is an