338 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Minister of Law) : I have no desire to interrupt my friend, but I must say that I do not accept the interpretation that he puts upon that part of my speech. It refers to quite a different matter.
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : I am very glad that I am wrong. It gives me satisfaction that Dr. Ambedkar did not want that the one crore of people should go out of the pale of the Hindu law. But all the same, the argument I was admitting was this. If this custom was good—and I claim it is good because according to the definition given in this very code, the custom is ancient, reasonable and not opposed to public policy or morality—I claim this custom should have been recognised by the Code. But this custom is not recognised. To a certain extent the kritrima form was adopted as a good form by the original Bill but the present Bill says that no adoption will be recognised except this kind of adoption which according to Dr. Ambedkar is governed by certain rules. What are the rules? A man must not be more than 15 years of age. He must be given by somebody in adoption. He must not have married. Even according to the present law of adoption these rules are not there. Supposing a Hindu’s daughter and son-in-law have died then the daughter’s son cannot be adopted; the sister’s son cannot be adopted, even the nephew cannot be adopted if the parents are not there. It is common knowledge that even today this rule that if a person is married he cannot be adopted, is not in practice and according to law in vogue, it is not necessary that a person should not have married before he is adopted. Similarly about age. So, all these measures have been changed in such a way that they cannot fit in with the present conditions, or they cannot be useful to us or cannot govern us.
We passed in the Constituent Assembly that we want a Civil Code. Even if this were not the Hindu Code and if Dr. Ambedkar was charged with the duty of framing a Civil Code, (I think he will be so charged after the Constitution is passed.) he will certainly include this civil institution—the nomination of an heir—in the Civil Code also. A man may be able to help, in their old age, those who appoint him the heir. My submission is that this point alone is sufficient to see that as a matter of fact the re-draft is much worse than the original Code and full attention was not paid to the original Bill. If full attention had been paid, this thing would have been considered. Had it been considered clause by clause, you would not have arrived at this.