z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-07.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 570
570 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Dr. Ambedkar : Just as Parliament in the Act suggested that there should be a Public Service Commission, so it could be suggested that there should be the appointment of a Committee.
Sir Cowasji Jehangir: By the Central Government ?
Dr. Ambedkar: Yes.
Chairman: I think I know enough now to draft a Report on this subject, but I should like to know what is your view—not that we shall here and now recommend that any Expert Franchise Committee or any other Committee should be set up after 15 years, say, but in view of possibility that one Province might extend its franchise much more generously than another, so that the whole thing might get out of step, ought we to contemplete the possibility of anybody being constituted to look into the matter then, to try and adjust things, or shall we merely content ourselves with leaving things to the Provinces, or ought we to follow Dr. Ambedkar’s idea of a Committee ? We need not say that it has to come into being, or when it is to come into being, but that it might function if it came into being.
Mr. Basu : At any period when the Central Government desired to appoint a Committee.
Chairman: We will not say how it is to be appointed, but what do you say about the possibility of appointing such a body ?
Diwan Bahadur Ramachandra Rao : I think the Government of India should set up such a body, not that Parliament should set up such a body.
Dr. Ambedkar: What difference does it make?
Diwan Bahadur Ramachandra Rao: We are leaving great freedom in all these matters. I would like to eliminate parliamentary control. I should like to know what the proposal is. If you say that after a number of years it shall be competent for the Government of India to appoint a Committee to look into this question in the whole of the Provinces, I shall have no objection, but if it is a question of Parliament going into this question again in ten years, I object to it entirely. I have no objection to the Committee being appointed by which the franchise will be extended, but I should like that power vested entirely in the Government of India and to be exercised at its discretion whenever there is necessity for such a thing within a certain number of years, or after a certain number of years.
Dr. Ambedkar: How has it any bearing on the functions of this SubCommittee whether this Committee is appointed by Parliament or by the Government of India?
Diwan Bahadur Ramachandra Rao: We are devoluting authority to India from Parliament, because in 1919 when this question came up before the Parliamentary Committee, I and several others with me contended that there should be devolution of questions like this to authorities in India ; and because such a step was not taken, we are now confronted with the accumulated complaints about franchise which are now being investigated and they could not be investigated because parliamentary permission