PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 103
(14)
ARMY BILL
The Minister of Defence (Sardar Baldev Singh) : I beg to move.
“That the Bill to consolidate and amend the law relating to the Government of the regular Army, as reported by the Select Committee, be taken into consideration.”
- Mr. Speaker : Hon. Dr. Ambedkar.
The Minister of Law (Dr. Ambedkar) : If other hon. Friends do not want to speak, I thought I would like to reply to the two points raised by my hon. friend Pandit Kunzru because they have a constitutional aspect.
Mr. Speaker : I would give him precedence.
Dr. Ambedkar : My. hon. Friend Pandit Kunzru, in the course of his speech on the motion, raised two points. As they refer to the constitutional aspect of the matter, I thought that it may be appropriate that I should deal with them rather than leave them to be dealt with by my hon. colleague.)
The first point was that clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill were inappropriate in view of the fact that they made separate mention of the Forces in Part B States. I will take these two sections separately.
With regard to section 4, I think my hon. friend will agree that under the scheme of this Act, there is a distinction to be made between what is known as the regular Army and Forces which do not form part of the regular Army. My friend will see that the regular Army is defined under item 21 of section 3 which deals with definitions. For instance, there are what are called Assam Rifles, Bhil Corps and several other units which may be mentioned as illustrations which do not
*P.D., Vol. 4, Part II, 6th April 1950, pp. 2601-5.