266 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
I would like to draw their attention to section 86 (Part v : Joint Family Property). Section 86 of the new Bill as it has emerged from the Select Committee is the same word for word, except for ordinary verbal changes, as part III-A section 2, on page 12 of the original Bill as drafted by the Rau Committee. Similarly section 87 which also deals with joint property is word for word the same as part III-A, section 2, page 12. Anybody who compares the two I am sure will accept the proposition which I have enunciated in this House that this is not an innovation by the Select Committee at all but they form part and parcel of the original Bill as drafted by the Rau Committee.
I should like to dispel any further doubt that may exist on this point by referring to the Rau Committee’s Report (page 13). This is what the Rau Committee says (paragraph 51):
“Turning now to the contents of the Draft Code the main proposals on which differences of opinion have manifested themselves in varying degree are the following :
(1) the abolition of the right by birth and the principle of survivorship and the substitution of the Dayabhaga for Mitakshra in the Mitakshra Provinces;
(2) giving of half a share to the daughter;
(3) the conversion of the Hindu woman’s limited estate into an absolute estate;
(4) the introduction of monogamy as a rule of law;
(5) the introduction of certain provisions for divorce.”
I think Hon. Members will see that the Rau Committee in setting about its work made it perfectly known to everybody in this country that the Code that they had framed and which subsequently was embodied by them did contain the specific provision. I have no doubt about it that anybody who has read the volumes of evidence which have been collected by them previsouly by the joint Select Committee appointed by this House, by the Rau Comittee and by this Government by an executive order—would find that there is no person either in this House or outside, who has paid any attention to this part of the Code, who will be under any wrong impression that the Rau Committee had decided or propsoed that this co-parcenary should not be abolished. It is therefore not a new innovation of the Select Committee at all.
The Select Committee has made some changes with regard to the application of the Hindu Code. The Rau Committee’s Bill contained a provision that the Bill should not extend to areas to which the Marumakkattayam and Aliyasanthanam laws apply. Somehow the Select Committee in its enthusiasm transgressed, if I may say so without any disrespect, the bounds of reasonablnness and came to the