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CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY OF INDIA - VOLUME IX Thursday, the 4th August 1949 The Constituent Assembly of India met in the Constitution Hall, New Delhi, at Nine of the Clock, Mr. President (The Honourable Dr. Rajendra Prasad) in the Chair.

Articles 188, 277-A and 278-contd.

Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad (West Bengal: Muslim) : Mr. President. Sir. I was dealing with clause (2) of the proposed-article 278. There the wording is "Any such Proclamation may be revoked or varied by a subsequent Proclamation." The words "or varied" were proposed to be inserted in a similar context by an amendment by Mr. Kamath. But that was rejected. In the new article 275, clause 2(a), the wording is : "may be revoked by a subsequent Proclamation." Mr. Kamath by his amendment No. 111 of List No. 1 of this week, wanted to amend it by inserting the words "may be revoked or varied by subsequent Proclamation." The same words have been officially accepted in the present, article namely, "may be revoked or varied by a subsequent Proclamation." I think this want of uniformity is due to the haste and rapidity with which the Drafting Committee has to keep pace with varying directions.

It has been argued that article 275 is there and that is quite sufficient and that there is no need for enacting a measure like article 278. And it is further said that in article 278, no question of peace and tranquillity and internal commotion arises. May I point out that the situation is one in which the entire machinery has failed, and ordinary people do not enjoy the common liberties? Internal disturbance to peace and tranquillity are all covered by this. There may not be internal disturbance, but there may be imminent danger to peace: and tranquillity being broken by the people at large. In those circumstances, I do not think the State is justified in saying that there is no insurrection, and no internal disturbance. It is much better to have a preventive measure than a cure after the insurrection takes peace. From all these points, I think, the enactment of article 277-A and article 278 are perfectly justified. I only wish that the logical conclusion of 277-A should have been enacted and the Centre should have been given more power to see that before the constitutional machinery fails the Centre discharges its duty in seeing that it does not fail.

Shri Algu Rai Sastri (United Provinces : General) : *[Mr. President, I beg to submit that the articles under discussion at present, I mean article 188 embodied in the fourth part of the Draft Constitutions and article 275 embodied in the 11th part, should be retained as they are in the Draft Constitution. No change whatever need be made in them. Article 188 provides for grave emergency when the Governor of a State will have the power to declare the existence of emergency and to take the administration of the State in his own hand. For illustration I may make mention of the difficult situation existing in Bengal and Madras today. If the situation deteriorates and the difficulties assume very serious proportions, the Governors of these Provinces may, under this article, by Proclamation, take the constitutional machinery of the province in their own hands.

The other point of criticism was that articles 278 and 278-A were unnecessary in view of the fact that there are already in the Constitution articles 275 and 276. With all respect I must submit that he (Pandit Kunzru) has altogether misunderstood the purposes and intentions which underlie article 275 and the present article

278. His argument was that after all what you want is the right to legislate on provincial subjects. That right you get by the terms of article 276, because under that article the Centre gets the power, once the Proclamation is issued, to legislate on all subjects mentioned in List II. I think that is a very limited understanding of the provisions contained either in articles 275 and 276 or in articles 278 and 278-A. I should like first of all to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the occasions on which the two sets of articles will come into operation are quite different. Article 275 limits the intervention of the Centre to a state of affairs when there is war or aggression, internal or external. Article 278 refers to the failure of the machinery by reasons other than war or aggression. Consequently the operative clauses, as I said, are quite different. For instance, when a proclamation of war has been issued under article 275, you get no authority to suspend the provincial constitution. The provincial constitution would continue in operation. The legislature will continue to function and possess the powers which the constitution gives it; the executive will retain its executive power and continue to administer the province in accordance with the law of the province. All that happens under article 276 is that the Centre also gets concurrent power of legislation and concurrent power of administration. That is what happens under article 276. But when article 278 comes into operation, the situation would be totally different. There will be no legislature in the province, because the legislature would have been suspended. There will be practically no executive authority in the province unless any is left by the proclamation by the President or by Parliament or by the Governor. The two situations are quite different. I think it is essential that we ought to keep the demarcation which we have made by component-words of article 275 and article 278. I think mixing the two things up would cause a great deal of confusion.