824 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
modified by the President by order during the period of the emergency. It was felt that it was not proper to give the President this absolute and unrestricted power to modify the financial arrangements between the Provinces and the States and that the Parliament should also have a say in the matter. Consequently it is now proposed to add clause (2) to article 277 whereby it is provided that any order made by the President varying the arrangements shall be laid before each House of Parliament. It follows that after the matter is placed before the Parliament. Parliament will take such action as it deems proper, which the President will be bound to carry out.
*The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay : General) : Mr. Vice-President, Sir, I have given as close an attention as it is possible to give to the amendment moved by my honourable Friend Pandit Kunzru, and I am sorry to say that I do not see eye to eye with him, because I feel that in a large measure his amendment seems to be quite unnecessary.
Let us begin by having an idea as to what financial relations between the Centre and the provinces are normally going to be, I think it is clear from the articles which have already been passed that the provinces will be drawing upon the Centre in the normal course of things :
(1) proceeds of income-tax under article 251 ;
(2) a share of the central excise duties under article 253 ; and
(3) certain grants and subventions under article 255.
I am not speaking of the jute duty because it stands on a separate footing and has been statutorily guaranteed.
Let us also have an idea as to what the article as proposed by me proposes to do. What the article proposes to do is this, that it should be open to the President when an emergency has been proclaimed to have the power to reallocate the proceeds of the income-tax, the excise duties and the grants which the Centre would be making under the provisions of article 255. The article, as proposed by me, gives the President discretion to modify the allocations under these three heads. That is the position of the draft article as presented to the House by the Drafting Committee.
Now, what does my Friend Pandit Kunzru propose to do by his amendment ? If I have understood him correctly, he does not differ from the Drafting Committee in leaving with the President complete discretion to modify two of the three items to winch I have made reference, that
- CAD, Vol. IX, dated 20th August 1949, pp. 520-23.