250 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
and the drafting of the Bill. The Ministry of Law, having felt that the Bill ‘as drafted by the Hindu Law Committee did not conform to the canons
of a Code’, decided to revise the draft of the Bill and to remove those defects, so as to enable one to have ‘a full and complete picture of the provisions of the Code’. They, therefore, undertook the task of re-arranging the parts
and divisions of the original Bill in consecutive sections and in a logical sequence, and also made some further suggestions as they thought proper for consideration by the Select Committee. The Ministry of Law simply placed
before the Select Committee a sort of a proper form in which the original Bill could have been shaped by the Select Committee themselves at their meetings or they could have directed the draftsmen to carry out the changes.
It may be noted here that, while circulating the Code in a revised form, the Ministry of Law supplied to the members of the Select Committee an
index also giving therein, for facility of reference, the place of a section in the revised Code with the corresponding section in the original Bill, as prepared by the Hindu Law Committee. The members of the Select
Committee had thus before them, at all times and at every stage, the provisions of the Code as contained in the original Bill. The Ministry of Law further invited the attention of the members of the Select Committee to
changes of substance suggested by them in the revised draft. It was, therefore, clear that at all stages of deliberations by the Select Committee of the provisions of the Bll, both the revised and the original were before
them and the deliberations had proceeded on a comparative study of the original provisions and the provisions contained in the revision as suggested by the Ministry of Law.
Coming to the question of evidence as to the above facts, the only member of the Select Committee who spoke with reference to the Point of Order
was, Pandit Balkrishna Sharma. Pandit Balkrishna Sharma stated in the House: “The Bill which the House asked us to consider was always before us.” The evidence on record consisting of the main report, as also the
dissenting minute, amply support this statement. The honourable members, who have raised this objection, relying upon passages in the Select Committee Report or the Dissenting Minutes seem to take certain passages
out of the context and by themselves. This is what the main report says:
“We, the undersigned, having considered the Bill”—not the revised draft— “have now the honour to submit etc.” This is how they begin the Report.