z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-10.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 749
EVIDENCE : RIGHT HON. SIR SAMUEL HOARE AND OTHERS 749
State desires me to reserve any questions upon Second Chambers for the Provinces ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: I would suggest, so far as the Constitution of the Second Chambers goes (the membership), perhaps it would be better to take that with the franchise generally.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: This franchise question ought to be excluded at this stage ?
Sir Samuel Hoare : Whatever the Committee thinks, I should have thought it came better into the franchise.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I will not ask any questions of the Secretary of State.
Chairman: I think the Secretary of State’s suggestion is a practical one. I hope you will not put questions at this stage.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I was going to ask the composition of the Second Chamber. Would it be better to reserve it ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes, I think perhaps that would be better.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: You said in the course of a reply to a question put last time, that you contemplated that in the Provinces the Ministers could be drawn from either Chamber, both the Lower and the Upper ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: You remember that in the Second Chamber, as suggested in the White Paper, there are to be 10 nominated Members ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Is it the proposal that these 10 nominated members who will sit in the Upper Chamber will also be eligible for being Ministers ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes, I would not draw any distinction between them and the others.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: The nominated members would be eligible for being Ministers ?
Sir Samuel Hoare : Yes, certainly; that is how I conceive it to be.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: In the present Government of India Act there is a distinct provision that any member who is a nominated member of the Provincial Legislature is not eligible for being a Minister ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: I take it from Dr. Ambedkar that is so.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar . I stand subject to correction, but I believe that is the position ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: Yes.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : So you are really introducing the very important change by allowing nominated members in the Upper Chambers to be Ministers in the new Government ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: It is, of course, a very different kind of Government.
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I am not going into the reasons, but I am only stating the facts ?