DRAFT CONSTITUTION 517
unless he is at the time of his appointment an elected member of the House. I think it forgets to take into consideration certain important matters which cannot be overlooked. First is this.—it is perfectly possible to imagine that a person who is otherwise competent to hold the post of a Minister has been defeated in a constituency for some reason which, although it may be perfectly good, might have annoyed the constituency and he might have incurred the displeasure of that particular constituency. It is not a reason why a member so competent as that should be not permitted to be appointed a member of the cabinet on the assumption that he shall be able to get himself elected either from the same constituency or from another constituency. After all, the privilege that is permitted is a privilege that extends only for six months. It does not confer a right to that individual to sit in the House without being elected at all. My second submission is this, that the fact that a nominated Minister is a member of the cabinet, does not either violate the principle of collective responsibility nor does it violate the principle of confidence, because if he is a member of the Cabinet, if he is prepared to accept the policy of the Cabinet, stands part of the Cabinet and resigns with the Cabinet, when he ceases to have the confidence of the House his membership of the Cabinet does not in any way cause any inconvenience or breach of the fundamental principles on which parliamentary government is based. Therefore, this qualification, in my judgment, is quite unnecessary.
With regard to the second qualification, namely, that a member must be a member of the majority party, I think Prof. K. T. Shah has in contemplation or believes and hopes that the electorate will always return in the election a party which will always be in majority and another party which will be in a minority but in opposition. Now, it is not permissible to make any such assumption. It would be perfectly possible and natural, that in an election the Parliament may consist of various number of parties, none of which is in a majority. How is this principle to be invoked and put into operation in a situation of this sort where there are three parties none of which has a majority ? Therefore, in a contingency of that sort the qualification laid down by Prof. K. T. Shah makes government quite impossible.
Secondly, assuming there is a majority party in the House, but there is an emergency and it is desired both on the part of the majority party