CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DEBATES 91
cannot be imported into the Constitution unless they are germane to its purpose and are accepted by the Constituent Assembly.
Several speakers have criticised the Draft on the ground that it bears no impress of Gandhian philosophy and that while borrowing some of its provisions from alien sources, including the Government of India Act, 1935, it has not woven into its fabric any of the elements of ancient Indian polity.
Would our friends with Gandhian ideas tell us whether they are prepared to follow those ideas to their logical conclusions by dispensing for instance, with armed forces ; by doing away with legislative bodies. whose work, we have been told on good authority, Gandhiji considered a waste of time ; by scrapping our judicial system and substituting for it some simple and informal methods of administering justice ; by insisting that no Government servant or public worker should receive a salary exceeding Rs. 500 per month or whatever was the limit finally fixed ? I know some of the Congress leaders who sincerely believe that all this should and could be done. But we are speaking now of the Constitution as it was settled by the Constituent Assembly on the last occasion…….
*Syed Muhammad Saadulla (Assam : Muslim): Mr. Vice President, Sir………The Drafting Committee is not self-existent. It was created by a Resolution of this House in August 1947, if I remember right. I personally was lying seriously ill at the lime and I could not attend that session. But, Sir, I find from the proceedings that as the Drafting Committee has been asked lo frame the Constitution within the four corners of the Objective Resolution, we will be met with the criticisms which we have heard now. Wise men even in those days had anticipated this and to the official Resolution an amendment was moved by the learned Premier of Bombay, Mr. Kher, wherein we are given this direction. I will read from his speech. He moved an amendment to the original Resolution for Constituting this Drafting Committee and there he said—“That the Drafting Committee should be charged with the duties of scrutinising the draft of the text of the Constitution of India prepared by the Constitutional Adviser giving effect to the decisions taken already in the Assembly and including all matters which are ancillary thereto or which have to be provided in such a Constitution
*CAD, Vol. VII. 9th November 1948 . p . 388.