490 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad : I mean the actual time of appointment.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : What is the time may be very different. Unless he prescribes the system I do not think that the introduction of the word ‘time’ introduces any greater clarity or definiteness at all.
Secondly, so tar as this particular clause is concerned 1 find that his amendment is quite unnecessary, because if he will read subclause(1) of article 54 he will see that it is stated “to fill such vacancy enters upon his office”. Surely the entering upon office will he at sometime in the day—it may be midnight or it may be 12 o’clock in the day therefore time is specified so to say by implication and this amendment is therefore quite unnecessary……….*
Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad : The clause provides that the VicePresident shall act until the ‘date’ on which the new President enters upon his office and not the time when lie does so.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Surely it will be sometime on some day on which he will enter the office. He may probably consult an astrologer to find out what is the auspicious moment. However, the amendment is quite unnecessary.
My friend Mr. Kamath said that in replying to the debate on the previous article I stated or rather in moving my amendment I stated that the Vice-President when acting as the President shall have the same emoluments as the President. He found some difficulty in reconciling that statement with the amendment which I have moved, which gives the Parliament the power to fix the salary of the Vice-President when acting as the President. If my Friend Mr. Kamath were to turn to page 161 of the Draft Constitution he will find that there is a schedule fixing the salary of the President and paragraph 5 of that schedule definitely provides for the salary of the President. Surely when a person is acting as the President, no matter at what early stage in life he has climbed to that post, he will be entitled to get that salary according to this Constitution. But it was felt that it might be necessary to leave the matter to Parliament to fix a different scale of salary for a person who is assuming the office of the President expressly for a very short duration. Parliament may not like to give him the same salary, because the tenure of his office is certainly not of the same duration as that of the President himself. Consequently, if Parliament makes no
*Dots in the original debates indicate interruptions.