DRAFT CONSTITUTION 769
Proclamation could run for six months and then it shall have to be ratified by Parliament again. After Parliament has ratified, it will again run for six months only. There will be further ratification by Parliament, so that six months is the period which is permitted for a Proclamation after it has been ratified by Parliament. Further continuance would require further ratification and we have put an outside limit of three years. At the end of three years, neither Parliament nor the President can continue the state of affairs in existence in the province under which this Proclamation has taken effect.
Then I come to article 278-A. Sub-clause (a) which provides for Parliament to delegate power to make laws for the State to the President or any other authority specified by him in that behalf is a new one.
Sub-clause (b) of the article is merely a consequential change, consequential upon sub-clause (a) of clause (1) of article 278-A. It says that authority may be conferred upon anybody, either upon the officers of the Government of India or officers of even Provincial Governments to carry into effect any law that may be made by Parliament or by any agency appointed by Parliament in this behalf.
Sub-clause (c) of clause (I) of article 278-A is a new clause. It provides for the sanctioning of the budget. In the original draft article 278 no provision was made as to how to sanction and prepare the Budget of a province whose legislature has been suspended. That matter is now made clear by the introduction of sub-clause (c) of clause (1) to article
278-A which expressly provides that the President may authorise, when the House of the People is not in session, expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of the State, pending the sanction of such expenditure by Parliament.
Sub-clause (d) makes it quite clear—which probably was already implicit in the article—that the President also can exercise his powers conferred upon him by article 102 to issue Ordinances with regard to the running of the administration of any particular province which has been taken over when both the Houses are not in session. The original article 102 was confined to Ordinances to be issued with regard to the Central Government. We now make it clear by subclause (d) that this power will also be exercised by the President with regard to any Ordinance that may be necessary to be passed for the conduct of the administration of a province which has been taken up.