DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 1217
Dr. Ambedkar : There is only one point to be explained and .......
Shri Bhatt : You have given me time.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : All right. I will call the Law Minister later. But after all it is a very formal and verbal matter that is dealt with in this amendment.
Babu Ramnarayan Singh : No, Sir, it is important too.
Shri Bhatt : The amendment moved by me is not verbal. The thing which I want to stress in it may possibly not be acceptable to the Hon. Minister and he may not be inclined to change his attitude. As a matter of fact, as a Lawyer I am not so competent as to convince him. But I want to tell him and draw his attention to certain things lacking in the measure that is being sponsored by him.
The first point is about the definition of ‘custom and usage’ which he has put here in an insufficient form. On reconsideration he will himself feel inclined to reduce or add a few words to convey the complete sense.
By ‘custom and usage’ we mean traditions, conventions and routine practices, The definition being propounded by him for it limits the sense to four essential attributes, viz ., continuity, uniformity, certainity and its not being opposed to public policy. In its place I am thinking of a simplier definition which may precisely convey the same sense. But he has talked of uniformity. What does this uniformity mean? Different castes have their different customs. Even a single caste, spread roughly over a thousand villages, allows various concessions and different usages to the separate circles, and therefore even in a single caste there is a separate sort of uniformity for separate places. There are variations. Therefore the word uniformity would give rise to a lot of litigation and benefit the lawyers It may therefore be dropped as variation is inevitable.
If a community made certain variations, it being its usage, it was likely to pay a fine of Rs. 50. But now-a-days Rs. 50 mean nothing and cannot have affect to the desired extent and therefore if one suggests to increase the fine to Rs. 100 you would say that uniformity is not there. Today you change a thing which was good till yesterday, then where is uniformity ? Therefore, as regards uniformity we should agree that variations are bound to be.
I shall quote here from Article 13 of the Constitution to explain how the word ‘law’ has been defined there :