z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-08.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 639
IN THE FEDERAL STRUCTURE COMMITTEE 639
Chairman: Just tell me where it is, if you do not mind. I know it so well, but at the moment I cannot put my hand on it.
Dr. Ambedkar: I am sorry. I have not got it.
Chairman: I was thinking of the clause which began about the privileges and immunities of free citizens in the various States—about the people of each Province and State having free ingress and egress, and that sort of thing. However, we will not waste our time because I cannot put my hand on it at the moment. Section 2 of Article IV is the one I was thinking of.
Dr. Ambedkar: My submission is this — that whatever may be the manner in which we define the fundamental rights, or whatever may be the manner in which we define minority rights, the important problem is to see that they are properly safeguarded. My reasons are these. The Federal Constitution which we are going to have is not going to be, with all the protests that some of us are making, a perfect Federation. We shall have probably a Federation between British India, with all the popular and representative institutions, and the Indian States with no popular and representative institutions in them. I am only imagining. Probably the results may be otherwise ; and, if so, nobody will be more happy than myself. But we shall have this situation, namely, that of a federation between a democracy and an autocracy; and we shall have, as I say, within British India, a government not of political majorities, but a government in the main of communal majorities. My view, therefore, is that the question of the protection of fundamental rights, and the question of the protection of minority rights, assume far greater importance in India than it can assume in any other constitution; and the duty absolutely to guarantee the fundamental rights, whatever they are, and the minority rights, whatever they are, becomes paramount. The best way of doing this seems to me to be to endow the Federal Court with a jurisdiction to hear matters arising out of them. That is my submission. Everywhere, whether a question arises regarding fundamental rights or minority safeguards, whether in British India or in a Native State, the Federal Court must have jurisdiction to hear them.
Chairman: Would you include cases of commercial discrimination ?
Dr. Ambedkar: Yes. If we all agree that it should be a fundamental right that there shall be no commercial discrimination, then it should come within the jurisdiction of the Federal Court, so much with regard to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court.
The next point that I wish to touch upon is with regard to the enforcement of the decisions of the Federal Court. The note which you have been kind enough to circulate, Lord Chancellor, does not suggest any legal measures for the enforcement of the decisions of the Federal Court. The matter, I understand, is to be left to the different States and to the different Provinces ; and you rather give us the admonition that we must not distrust the bona fides of the Provinces or the States, and that we must assume that they will faithfully abide by the decisions of the Federal Court and