z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-03.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 186
186 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
any sense guilty of violating the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code or the principles of natural justice. I do not see any other circumstance which prima facie could make me believe that there was a reasonable cause which could have induced the Home Minister to suspend the sentence passed upon these people.
Then, Sir, I submit that there has never been a precedent at any rate to my knowledge, of ordinary convicts having their sentences suspended for any reason by any of the Home Members who have preceded the present Home Minister. And certainly no Government has ever accepted illness or a private difficulty as sufficient cause for the suspension of sentences which have been judicially passed by the highest tribunal in the province. It is, therefore, I submit, a most scandalous affair, unless some reasonable explanation is coming forth, that a Home Minister should have gone over the head of the High Court and suspended the sentence. He well knows—at any rate we know from facts that have appeared in the papers—that an application was made by the advocate who appeared On behalf of these accused in the High Court. The advocate made an application for the grant of special consideration for these people while they were in jail, namely, that they should be treated as B class prisoners. I am also told that an application was made by the advocate who appeared on behalf of the appellants that their sentences should be suspended for the time being Both these applications were rejected. The very same applications—at any rate, one of those applications has been granted by the Home Minister. Sir, there could be no surer way of bringing law and order into contempt than the act of which the Home Minister is guilty. I have no hesitation in pronouncing that opinion. I would like to ask the Honourable the Home Minister whether an act of this kind which prima facie, on its very face, does not bear a satisfactory explanation which could carry conviction to the mind of the people, is not likely to create a suspicion about the integrity and honesty of the administration of this Province. Sir, I would also like to ask a further question in this connection and that question I want to put to the Honourable the Prime Minister. The question is this : Was this order passed with the knowledge of the Prime Minister ? Was this order passed with the knowledge of the Cabinet or was it passed only by the Honourable the Home Minister ? Sir, I ask these questions for a very great reason. We are entitled to suppose, although we have no positive evidence on this point that under the new Act the Congress Cabinet is working as a collective body with a collective responsibility; and, therefore, I am entitled to presume that this matter was placed before the whole of the Cabinet and if not before the whole of the Cabinet, at any rate, before the Prime Minister who, in the eye of the people, is the person who is solely responsible for the administration of this Province. I am particularly bound to make this