1040 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
dispose of appeals and petitions which may be pending before it on the 26th January, 1950. Now taking stock of the situation as it will be on the 26th January 1950 the position is this. There are at present seventy civil appeals and ten criminal appeals pending before the Privy Council. The Calendar of cases which is prepared for the next sitting of the Privy Council has set down twenty appeals for hearing and disposal. It is also a fact that that is probably the only sitting which the Privy Council will hold for the purposes of disposing of the Indian appeals before the date on which the Constitution comes into operation.
According to the information which we have, this list of cases which is prepared for hearing at the next session of the Privy Council contains about twenty appeals, which means that on the 26th January, 1950, sixty appeals will remain pending undisposed of; and the question really that we are called upon to consider is this. What is to be done with regard to these sixty appeals which are likely to remain pending before the Privy Council on the 26th January, 1950?
There are, of course, two ways of dealing with this matter. One way was to continue the jurisdiction of the Privy Council and dispose of all the appeals that are now pending before it. That was the procedure that was adopted in the Irish Constitution by article 37 whereby it was stated that nothing in their Constitution would affect the jurisdiction of the Privy Council to deal with matters that may be pending before them on the date of the Constitution. But as I pointed out, in the proposed article 308 clause (3), we do not propose to leave any jurisdiction to the Privy Council. We propose to terminate the jurisdiction of the Privy Council on the 26th January, 1950. The only way out, therefore, is to provide that the jurisdiction of the Privy Council shall terminate, that their jurisdiction shall be conferred on the Federal Court and that they shall transfer all the cases which are pending before them on the 10th October, except the twenty cases to which I made a reference earlier to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court. This is what the Bill does.
Now, Sir, coming to the specific provisions of the Bill, it will be noticed that clause 2 abolishes the jurisdiction of the Privy Council over all courts in the territory of India. Clause 3 abolishes the jurisdiction of the Privy Council over the Federal Court, and clause 5 is the converse of clauses
2 and 3, because it proposes to confer the Privy Council jurisdiction on the Federal Court. Clause 4 deals with the matters that are pending before the Privy Council. Although clause 5 confers the Privy Council’s jurisdiction on the Federal Court, clause 4 is a saving clause and saves the jurisdiction of the Privy Council in certain appeals and petitions which are