THE DRAFT CONSTITUTION 157
THE GAZETTE OF INDIA EXTRAORDINARY, FEB. 26,1948 189
discovery or production of any documents, or the investigation or punishment of any contempt of itself. Power of 119. (1) If at any time it appears to the President President to that a question of law or fact has arisen, or is likely consult to arise, which is of such a nature and such public Supreme importance that it is expedient to obtain the opinion Court. of the Supreme Court upon it, he may refer the question to that court for consideration and the court may, after such hearing as it thinks fit, report to the President its opinion thereon.
(2) The President may, notwithstanding anything contained in clause (i) of the proviso to article 109 of this Constitution, refer a dispute of the kind mentioned in the said clause to the Supreme Court for decision, and the Supreme Court shall thereupon, after giving the parties an opportunity of being heard, decide the same and report the fact to the President.
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Civil and judicial authorities to act in aid of the Supreme Court.
- All authorities, civil and judicial, in the territory of India shall act in aid of the Supreme Court.
Rules of *121. (1) Subject to the provisions of any law Court, etc. made by Parliament, the Supreme Court may from time to time, with the approval of the President,
*In the Supreme Court of the United States of America all the judges of the Court are entitled to participate in the hearing of every matter, and the Court never sits in divisions. The judges of that Court attach the greatest importance to this practice. The Committee is of opinion that this practice should be followed in India at least in two classes of cases, namely, those which involve questions of interpretation of the Constitution and those which are referred to the Supreme Court for opinion by the President. Whether the same practice should not be extended to other classes of cases is a matter which Parliament may regulate by law.
Item (b) giving the Court power to make rules for regulating the time to be allowed to advocates to make their submissions to the Court has also been inserted in the article. This follows the practice prevalent in the Supreme Court of the United States, where the advocates are normally allowed only one hour to argue each case, the rest of their submissions being in writing. (One member of the Committee, Shri Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar, considers it unnecessary expressly to mention this power in this article, because in his view the position of the Supreme Court in India, in respect of its general appellate functions, is different from that of the Supreme Court of the United States.)