Vol. 15 · pages 741–745

722 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES followed me or understood me. It must have been my fault that I was not as clear as I should have been. I shall therefore explain the position succinctly once again. With regard to office of profit, we have to determine what is an office of profit and what is not an office of profit. As I told the House earlier, Government does not propose to take a purely technical view of office of profit as they do in England where the law says that such and such is an office of profit, and whether that is any office of profit or not or whether any particular individual who is holding that office of profit draws any money or not, it is for the purpose of the law an office of profit the holder of which is disqualified. It is the intention of the Government not to import that rule in our Constitution and unnecessarily disqualify Members of Parliament under a technical view of what is called an office of profit. I think the House will remember that. We are going, as I said, to take a realistic view of what is an office of profit. In coming to the conclusion as to whether any particular office is an office of profit or not, we have to divide the payment made to the Member into two separate categories. One is payment to a Member which includes nothing more than what may be called actual out of pocket expenses : travelling, living and so on. Pandit Kunzru (Uttar pradesh): What else ? Dr. Ambedkar: I am coming to it. I am giving an illustration. I do not know whether you are familiar with it, but I think it is an illustration which is well known to many who attended the Round Table Conference. The second category would include what I would call actual expenses incurred by the member in order to be present at the committee to discharge his functions and something in addition as a recompense for the loss that he incurs by giving up some other business in order to attend to this business. I do not know whether my hon. friend was a Member of the Round Table Conference, but it is a fact and I happen to know it because I was a Member ; the allowances paid to Members were divided into two categories. One category was called subistence allowance which meant 22s. or 21s. per day. The other category was called merely ‘allowance’ which was 3-00 P.M.

723PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES intended to cover the loss which professional or businessmen incurred by giving up their business in this country and going to London to attend the Conference. Shri Sidhva: How much was that? Dr. Ambedkar : I forget the amount now—I think it was £ 100 a month. It is a long story, but I remember the distinction very well. But this distinction to my mind, is a very clear distinction. It is a distinction which can be justified on facts and which has a lot of precedents behind it. Therefore, the conclusion that was reached by Government in assessing whether any particular office was an office of profit or not was this distinction—whether the allowance or payment made to the member was nothing more than the bare expense which he may be supposed in normal times to incur, or whether in addition to this he was paid something more. We have taken the basis for actual expenses what has been decided by the Finance Minstry—in fact. I should have said what has been accepted by Government—not merely decided by the Finance Ministry, but accepted by Government before this conclusion was reached. As I said, the matter was brought before Government through the Speaker and through the President. There were only one or two cases that were referred to Government for consideration, but Government felt that it was desirable to find out whether there were any more cases of this sort to which the attention of the Speaker was not drawn and we, therefore, circularised the various Ministries. We circularised various offices to let us know whether there were any such cases which required to be considered, so that one comprehensive measure may be brought into cover all such cases that had happened since the inauguration of the Constitution. After the cases were received we applied this test to which I have just now referred—what was the amount of compensation that was paid : was it only the bare expenses, or was it something more than that. If it was something more than that, then we decided that it should be deemed to be an office of profit. If it was just what was decided upon by the Finance Ministry, we treated that it was not an office

724 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES of profit, irrespective of the question whether it was held by a Member of Parliament or not. We were very careful—I must again repeat—in finding a true basis for our decision, because if we treated each case ad hoc, on its own, it might have been argued that we applied one criterion to one particular case and another criterion for another case. We did not want that sort of accusation to be levelled against Government and therefore we were very keen in finding out a general fundamental principle which would be applied to all the cases. It was on that basis that we came to this conclusion that there were certain cases which exceeded the principle, namely, that the allowances were beyond what might be called merely compensation for actual expenses incurred. Pandit Kunzru: But there were other committees. Dr. Ambedkar: I am just coming to them. Now, with regard to the question that has been raised namely Rehabilitation Finance Corporation, it is obvious that the Article speaks of offce “of profit under the Government of India or the Government of any State”. An office of profit under a Corporation may be an office of profit. It is certainly not an office of profit under Government, and, therefore, the person is not disqualified. Shri Sidhva: It is under the Government of India. Dr. Ambedkar: What I give is the judicial interpretation and I am sure my hon. friend Mr. Sidhva, who I do not think would claim that he is a great constitutional lawyer, would not contest that position. Shri Sidhva: What about the Supreme Court decision ? Dr. Ambedkar: The Supreme Court has nothing to do with it. I was going to say that many Members are under the impression that this a matter which can be taken to the Supreme Court. This matter cannot be taken to the Supreme Court. If the House will allow me to say so, it is out of deference to the House that we have brought this measure. The President has absolute power to say whether any particular office is an office of profit or not. But we thought that it was not right to let the President decide it. We thought

725PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES it would be better if the matter was brought before Parliament and sanction of Parliament was obtained and that is the reason why the Bill has been brought forward. Now, with regard to the Rehabilitation Finance Corporation there can be no manner of doubt that this thing applies only to office of profit under the Government whether it is the Central Government or the State Government. It does not apply in office of profit under say, for instance the Sindri Corporation, or the Damodar Valley Corporation, or various other Corporations which have been created by Government. Shri Sondhi: Sindri is not a Corporation. Dr. Ambedkar : I was only quoting it by way of illustration. I am only making a general proposition that so far as office of profit under a corporation is concerned, a person is not affected by anything that is said or done under Article 102 of the Constitution. Consequently it was unnecessary to make any reference or provision in this Bill with regard to those Members of Parliament who may be holding office of profit under Rehabilitation Finance or various other corporations to which reference has been made. My hon. friend Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava said that the Government of India has been acting in a somewhat erratic, if not ridiculous, manner—asking members to return the money and then again requesting them to receive it back. Well, I suppose whoever the officer was who was responsible for this kind of thing was undoubtedly under the impression that the office of profit was an office of profit, whether it was under the Government of India or under a Corporation. That mistake was discovered and I think rectification was made and I am sure about it that such a mistake would not be repeated hereafter. That is the reason why no reference has been made in the Bill with regard to the Rehabilitation Finance or other Corporations. With regard to the long list which my hon. friend. Mr. Sidhva has given in his amendment, I should like to say that there again the same thing applies. The advice which the Law Ministry received was that the allowances paid to

726 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES these members were not such as to include profit or something more than actual expenses. On the view that we have taken that they are not office of profit, we do not think it desirable to enlarge the list by including in that category persons or officers to whom Mr. Sidhva refers in the amendment that he has given. Pandit Kunzru: May I point out one thing—that is that the allowances which these members received exceeded the limit which I understand has now been fixed by the Finance Ministery. Dr. Ambedkar: It might be so. But when the Bill says that according to it members of certain committees have incurred a disability and that disability shall be removed, the proper construction to put upon that clause would be that no other member of the Committee was disqualified and therefore, the Bill made no reference to it. Then with regard to the general proposition which my friend Mr. Sidhva was enunciated in his second amendment........... Pandit Kunzru : Will my hon. Friend kindly explain what are the special reasons that made the members of the committees referred to in the Bill liable to disqualification ? Dr. Ambedkar: Because there is an element of profit in the payment that was made to them. Pandit Kunzru: That is the allowance they received exceeded Rs. 20 ? Dr. Ambedkar: We thought that there was a certain amount of doubt in their case and the Bill seeks to remove that doubt. With regard to the general proposition which my friend Mr. Sidhva has enunciated, in amendment No. 2, that we should have a general rule and let the general rule apply so that there may be no more necessity for Bills of this kind. I think it is too tall an order for me to accept, for the simple reason that although for the monent and for the purposes of this Bill we have accepted a certain basis of remuneration—