468 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
responsibility for the changes, if any on himself. To a supplementary question of Mr. Ramnarain Singh the Minister for Law stated “I introduced no changes”. In fact, the point was whether the Departmental Bill had made any substantial changes, and he made it absolutely clear that he had made no such changes and that the Select Committee alone had made the changes. The entire House seems to be of the opinion that the Select Committee made the changes and that no substantial changes were made by the Departmental Committee. On the last occasion when I was on my legs, I was repeatedly asked to point wherein the Departmental Committee had made substantial changes. It is important that I should refer to this, because it shows that the Members of the Select Committee or the House or even the Minister for Law was not aware of any substantial changes really made, and I submit therefore, that, if I can show that substantial changes were really made by the Departmental Committee and very rarely by the Select Committee, it would open up before the House important considerations. The Select Committee were given a readymade new Bill and the assurance in the report of the Select Committee is that it contained no substantial changes and that the changes were rearranging the clauses, their re-numbering and such formal changes as are purely of a drafting nature. This is the assurance we get in the report of the Select Committe. I would therefore, like to point that those substantial changes were made by the Departmental committee. It is not easy to trace the changes and I cannot blame any honourable Member for failing to notice them. I had to prepare a comparative chart, not of the numbers alone, but of the clauses and subclauses of the three bills side by side. I asked for a copy of the Departmental Bill, but it was not supplied. I submit, Sir, that the Departmental Bill is a very important document and should be supplied to the Members. We have been supplied with a report of the evidence of witnesses before the Select Committee, but the most important document which played such a large part in the framing
3-00 P M . of the final Bill, has not been supplied. It was with the greatest difficulty that I have procured a copy, not from the Department, but through the courtesy of an honourable Members. Then, Sir, I prepared a comparative statement in parallel columns of the appropriate provisions of the original Bill and the corresponding provisions of the Departmental Bill and the final Bill, and I find it extremely difficult to explain the real significance of the changes except by reference to the comparative chart.