DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 467
transplanted to other parts. The act seems to be absolutely bona fide, but it was not based upon a full appreciation of the purpose of the separate treatment of the subjects. In fact, the Select Committee was presented with a re-drafted Bill by the Ministry of Law. That I submit would be likely absolutely to mislead the Select Committee. It is this document which was printed on the 17th July 1948. It was prepared ready-made for the handy use of the Select Committee before it ever met and the Select Committee was presented with this Departmental Bill. I have already dealt with one point, that in this intermediate Departmental Bill is a serious departure has been made, namely, different parts have been mixed up into one whole so to make it impossible to put separate parts back to their original shape. It can be done by a research student, not by Members of the House without any such tendencies or inclinations. I submit therefore, that the first mistake was committed by the Departmental Committee in mixing up entirely separate subjects. This introduces a serious and unprecedented constitutional innovation.
Then, Sir, the Departmental Committee has introduced very serious changes in their Departmental Bill. It will be extremely important when we consider the bearing and the effect of this Departmental Bill on the proceedings of the Select Committee. The Departmental Bill, as I shall attempt to show introduced many very important changes, though I must point out that neither the Honourable Minister for Law nor the Members of the Select Committee nor the Members of the House seem to be aware of the seriousness of the changes effected. In fact, the Minister for Law on the last occasion when he spoke in the present session in support of the motion for consideration pointed out the substantial changes made in the Bill. But he was careful to insist that all the changes had been made by the Select Committee. I took careful notes of his speech and this can be verified from the official reports. He pointed out with commendable thoroughness the departures made in the final Bill from the original Jogendranath Mandals’s Bill. That show that the Honourable Minister was totally unaware of the serious changes made by his Department in the so called Bill submitted to the Select Committee. In fact, I asked a Short Notice Question of the Honourable Minister as to whether the Departmental Committee had been authorised to make any substantial changes in the original Bill. The answer was that they had no such authority. On the other hand, the Minister for Law took the entire