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the Government of India Act, 1935. I think Prof. Shah and Mr. Kamath will realise that the political atmosphere at the time of the passing of the Act of 1935 was totally different from the atmosphere which prevails now. The atmosphere which was then prevalent in 1935 was for the executive to shun the legislature. In fact before that time the legislature was summoned primarily for the purpose of collecting revenue. It only met for the purpose of the budget and after the executive had succeeded in obtaining the sanction of the legislature for its financial proposals, both relating to taxation as well as to appropriation of revenue, the executive was not very keen to meet the legislature in order to permit the legislature either to question the day-to-day administration by exercising its right of interpellation or of moving legislation to remove social grievances. In fact, I myself have been very keenly observing the conduct of some of the provincial legislatures in India which function under the Act of
1935, and I know of one particular province ( I do not wish to mention the name) where the legislature never met for more than 18 days in the whole year and that was for the purpose of the legislature’s sanction to the proposals for collecting revenue.
Mr. Tajamul Husain : Who was responsible for that ?
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : As I was going to explain the same, mentality which prevailed in the past of the executive not wishing to meet the legislature and submitting itself and its administration to the scrutiny of the legislature was responsible for this kind of conduct.
Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru : Which province was it ?
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : You better let that lie. I can tell my honourable Friend privately which province it was. It was felt that if such a tiling happended as did happen before 1935, it would be a travesty of popular government. To summon the legislature merely for the purpose of getting the revenue and then to dismiss it summarily and thus deprive it of all the legitimate opportunities which the law had given it to improve the administration either by questions or by legislation was, as I said, a travesty of democracy. In order to prevent that sort of thing happening this clause was introduced in the Government of India Act, 1935. We thought and personally I also think that the atmosphere has completely changed and I do not think any executive would hereafter be capable of showing this kind of callous conduct towards the legislature. Hence we thought it might be desirable