126 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
“2. His Excellency in Council does not..... consider that the plan proposed..... for bringing the annual financial statement within the terms of the Indian Council’s Act, would be appropriate or possible. The passing of the Appropriation Bill in the House of Commons is a proceeding by which authority is given to carry into effect the Resolutions of the House in Committee of Supply which till the passing of the Appropriation Bill are not law. The Bill enumerates every grant that has been made during the whole session, and authorizes the several sums voted by the Committee of Supply to be issued and applied to each separate service. It also contains a provision that the various aids and supplies shall not be issued or applied to any other uses than those mentioned.
“3. Such a proceeding would, His Excellency in Council considers, be out of place in India, and might have the effect of transferring from the Executive to the Legislative Council, the power of disposing of all public moneys. His Excellency, therefore does not consider that the introduction of an Appropriation Bill would be advisable.”
Against this ruling the Government of Madras appealed to the Secretary of State [1] and pleaded that either the proposal of an Annual Appropriation Act be approved or
“such an alteration in the Council’s Act be made as will allow the financial statement to be legally made and discussed in the Local Legislative Council.”
But the Secretary of State upheld the decision of the Government of India [2] on the ground that
“such mode of procedure is only applicable in a representative assembly, which has full powers of control over the Executive, and any such powers Parliament has advisedly withheld from the Legislative Council of India.”
The suggestion was therefore dropped and was not given effect to till 1921. As the voice of the people did not prevail [3] in the framing of the financial contracts between the Imperial and Provincial
1 Letter from the Government of Madras, Financial Department, dated September
19, 1871, to the Secretary of State and the whole of the correspondence accompanying it.
2 Legislative Despatch No. 4 to the Government of India, dated January 18, 1872.
3 In fact the point that decentralization should not be extended unless it was followed by devolution of political and financial power on the representatives of the people was not specifically raised till 1908, and that too only by the late Hon. Mr. Gokhale in his evidence before the Royal Commission on decentralization of India, q.v.