DRAFT CONSTITUTION 723
Commission to have an independent machinery to carry on all the work of the preparation of the electoral roll, the revision of the roll, the conduct of the elections and so on would be really duplicating the machinery and creating unnecessary administrative expense which could be easily avoided for the simple reason, as I have stated, that the work of the Electoral Commission may be at times heavy and at other times it may have no work. Therefore we have provided in clause (5) that it should be open for the Commission to borrow from the provincial Governments such clerical and ministerial agency as may be necessary for the purposes of carrying out the functions with which the Commission has been entrusted. When the work is over, that ministerial staff will return to the provincial Government. During the time that it is working under the Electoral Commission, no doubt administratively, it would be responsible to the Commission and not to the Executive Government. These are the provisions of this article and I hope the House will now realise what it means and in what respects it constitutes a departure from the original articles of the draft Constitution.
- The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay : General): Mr. President, Sir, this amendment of mine has been subjected to criticism from various points of view. But in my reply I do not propose to spread myself over all the points that have been raised in the course of the debate. I propose to confine myself to the points raised by my Friend Professor Shibban Lal Saksena and emphasized by my Friend Pandit Hirday Nath Kunzru. According to the amendment moved by my Friend Professor Saksena, there are really two points which require our consideration. The one point is with regard to the appointment of the Commissioner to this Election Commission and the second relates to the removal of the Election Commissioner. So far as the question of removal is concerned, I personally do not think that any change is necessary in the amendment which I have proposed, as the House will see that so far as the removal of the members of the Election Commission is concerned the Chief Commissioner is placed on the same footing as the Judges of the Supreme Court. And I do not know that there exists any measure of greater security in any other Constitution which is better than the one we have provided for in the proviso to clause (4).
*CAD, Vol. VIII, 16th June 1949, pp. 928-30.