DRAFT CONSTITUTION 413
Assembly, as well as the Drafting Committee, was placed under a very serious limitation. On the one hand it was realised that there would be no use and no purpose served in forming an AllIndia Union if trade and commerce throughout India was not free. That was the general view. On the other hand, it was found that so far as the position of the States was concerned, to which I have already made a reference, they were not prepared to allow trade and commerce throughout India to be made subject to the legislative authority of the Union Parliament. Or to put it briefly and in a different language, they were not prepared to allow trade and commerce to be included as an entry in List No. I. If it was possible for us to include trade and commerce in list I, which means that Parliament will have the executive authority to make laws with regard to trade and commerce throughout India, we would not have found it necessary to bring trade and commerce under article 16, in the fundamental rights. But as that door was blocked, on account of the basic considerations which operated at the beginning of the Constituent Assembly, we had to find some place, for the purpose of uniformity in the matter of trade and commerce throughout India, under some head. Alter exercising a considerable amount of ingenuity, the only method we found of giving effect to the desire of a large majority of our people that trade and commerce should be free throughout India, was to bring under fundamental rights. That is the reason why, awkward as it may seem, we thought that there was no other way left to us, except to bring trade and commerce under fundamental rights. I think that will satisfy my friend Mr. Subramaniam why we gave this place to trade and commerce in the list of fundamental rights, although theoretically, I agree, that the subject is not germane to the subject-matter of fundamental rights.
With regard to the other argument, that since trade and commerce have been made subject to article 244, we have practically destroyed the fundamental right, I think I may fairly say that my friend Mr. Subramaniam has either not read article 244, or has misread that article. Article 244 has a very limited scope. All that it does is to give powers to the provincial legislatures in dealing with inter-State commerce and trade, to impose certain restrictions on the entry of goods manufactured or transported from another State, provided the legislation is such that it does not impose any disparity, discrimination between the goods