778 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
[Mr. Sidhwa moved another amendment which was followed by his speech.]
*The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I am very sorry, Sir. I should have requested you at the very outset to allow this article to stand over.
Mr. President : It is suggested that this article be held over.
ARTICLE 251
†The Honourable Dr. R. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I beg to move :
“That in clause (2) of article 251, for the words ‘revenues of India’ the words ‘Consolidated Fund of India’ be substituted.”
‡The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : Sir, I can explain the tiling now. Before I do that, I will take up the other amendments.
There is an amendment by Mr. Barman and there is another amendment by Prof. Saksena. I am sorry to say that I cannot accept either of the amendments.
This question whether the percentage of revenue collected by way of Income-tax should be prescribed in the Constitution itself either as sixty per cent, or any other percentage or should be left to the President to decide is a matter over which considerable thought has been bestowed both by the Central Government as well as by the provincial Governments in the Conference which took place the other day to discuss this matter. It was agreed that the best thing would be to leave the matter to be prescribed by the President and that no proportion should be fixed in the Constitution itself.
With regard to the other question raised by Prof. Sakesna, that instead of the word “prescribed”, the wording should be “prescribed by Parliament”, again I am sorry to say that I cannot accept the amendment. Our schemes is to allow the President to prescribe the proportion in the first instance by himself and in the second instance after a consideration of the recommendations of the Finance Commission. We do not propose to bring the Parliament in. Because, in that case, there would be a great deal of wrangle between the representatives of the different provinces and great injustice may be done by reason of the fact that certain provinces may have a very large majority in the Parliament and certain other provinces may have a small representation. Consequently, to leave the matter to Parliament practically means leaving it to the voice of those provinces who happen to have a larger
- CAD, Vol. IX, dated 5th August 1949, p. 209.
† Ibid., p. 211.
‡ Ibid, pp. 221-23.