562 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
proper provisions for the placing of business to be transacted by such an Assembly called for in a session by the Speaker or the Chairman would to my mind be a futile operation and therefore no purpose will be served by accepting that amendment.
With regard to the last amendment No. 1482 moved by Prof. K. T. Shah, the purpose is that the President should not grant the dissolution of the House unless the Prime Minister has stated his reasons in writting for dissolution. Well, I do not know what difference there can be between a case where a Prime Minister goes and tells the President that he thinks that the house should be dissolved and a case where the Prime Minister writes a letter stating that the house should be dissolved. Professor K. T. Shah, in the course of his speech, has not stated what purpose is going to be served by this written document which he proposes to be obtained from the Prime Minister before dissolution is sanctioned. I am therefore unable to make any comment. If the object of Prof. K. T. Shah is that the Prime Minister should not arbitrarily ask for dissolution, I think that object would be served if the convention regarding dissolution was properly observed. So far as I have understood it, the King has a right to dissolve Parliament. He generally dissolves it on the advice of the Prime Minister, but at one time, certainly at the time, when Macaulay wrote English History where he has propounded this doctrine of the right of dissolution of Parliament, the position was this : it was agreed by all politicians that, according to the convention then understood; the King was not necessarily bound to accept the advice of the Prime Minister who wanted a dissolution of Parliament. The King could, if he wanted, ask the leader of the Opposition, if he was prepared to come and form a Government so that the Prime Minister who wanted to dissolve the house may be dismissed and the leader of the Opposition could take charge of the affairs of Government and carry on the work with the same Parliament without being dissolved. The King also had the right to find some other Member from the house if he was prepared to take the responsibility of carrying on the administration without the dissolution of the House. If the King failed either to induce the leader of the Opposition or any other Member of Parliament to accept responsibility for governing and carry on the administration, he was bound to dissolve the House. In the same way, the President of the Indian Union will test the feelings of the House whether the House agrees that