660 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
My first submission is this, that in making tills amendment to article
204 which I have mewed this morning we are doing no more than carrying out the substance of the proviso to clause (2a) of article 121 contained in amendment No. 42. Here also what we say is this : that the High Court, if satisfied, may take the case to itself, decide the issue on constitutional law and send back the case to the subordinate Judge for the disposal of other issues involving the interpretation of ordinary law made by Parliament. I do not think we are making anything new, novel, strange or extraordinary as compared to what we have done with regard to the Supreme Court. Therefore my submission is this that if we accept, as we have accepted, the proviso to clause (2a) of article 121, the House cannot be making any very grave mistake or any very grave departure…….
Shri Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar : On a point of explanation, Sir, I shall feel obliged if it is your view that there is no distinction between a point arising in the appellate stage and a point arising when the case is pending in the court of first instance.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I am only dealing with the general framework of the amendment. My submission is that the amendment I have moved is exactly on a par with the proviso that we have added to clause (2a) of article 121. Therefore my submission is that there is no very grave departure from what we have already done.
Then two questions have been raised. One is with regard to the use of the word ‘judgment’ It has been said that the word ‘judgment’ has been differently interpreted and that the party whose case has been withdrawn by the High Court for the purposes of determining the constitutional issue may not be in a position to approach the supreme Court, because under article 110 we have said that an appeal to the Supreme Court shall lie only from the judgment or the final order of the High Court. The contention is that the judgment may not be regarded as a judgment within the meaning of article 110 or may not be regarded as a final order. Well, having used the word ‘judgment’ in article 110 in that prticular sense, namely a decision from which an appeal would lie to the Supreme Court, I do not personally understood why the use of word ‘judgment ‘in this amendment should not be capable of the same interpretation. But if the contention is correct I think the matter could be easily rectified by using the word ‘decision’ instead of ‘judgment’ and adding an explanation such as this that “the decision shall be regarded as a final order for the purpose of article
110”. I do not think that that difficulty is insuperable.