DRAFT CONSTITUTION 635
privileges and no immunities on Parliament and its members. All that it provided for was a single provision that there shall be freedom of speech and no member shall be prosecuted for anything said in the debate inside Parliament. Consequently that course was not open, because the existing Parliament or Legislative Assembly possesses no privilege and no immunity. Therefore we could not resort to that course.
The third course open to us was the one which we have followed, namely, that the privileges of Parliament shall be the privileges of the House of Commons. It seems to me that except for the sentimental objection to the reference to the House of Commons I cannot see that there is any substance in the argument that has been advanced against the course adopted by the Drafting Committee. I therefore suggest that the article has adopted the only possible way of doing it and there is no other alternative way open to us. Thai being so, I suggest that this article be adopted in the way in which we have drafted it.
Dr. P. S. Deshmukh : The honourable Member has said nothing about my other suggestion.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : As I said, if you want to categorise and set out in detail all the privileges and immunities it will take not less than twenty-five pages….*
Mr. President: Dr. Deshmukh’s suggestion was that in this article which deals with the legislatures of the States we might only say that the members of a State legislature will have the same privileges as Members of our Parliament.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : That is only a drafting suggestion. For instance, it can be said that most of the articles we are adopting for the State Legislatures are more or less the same articles which we have adopted for the Parliament at the centre. We might as well say that in most of the other cases the same provisions will apply to the State Legislature but as we have not adopted that course, it would be rather odd to adopt it in this particular case.
Mr. President : I shall first put the amendment of Mr. Jaspat Roy Kapoor to the House.
“That in clause (4) of article 169 alter the words ‘a House of the Legislature of a State’ the words ‘or any committee thereof’ be inserted.”
The amendment was adopted.
Article 169, as amended, was added to the constitution.
*Dots indicate interruption