PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 137
our object wil be served. I think we may adjourn just now and meet tomorrow at about 2-30.
Dr. Ambedkar : Sir, I think it is desirable that I should state to the House exactly what a Select Committee will be able to do and what it will not be able to do. I think it will be wrong on my part to agree to any such motion leaving the House in darkness as to what is possible to be done by a Select Committee and what is not possible. I think my remarks might also enable the House to decide whether in view of the points that may remain open for discussion it is desirable to have a Select Committee.
The first thing I am quite certain about is that the Select Committee will not be able to alter the provisions regarding qualifying period and qualifying date. I am quite certain in my mind that however desirable it may be, it would not be possible to do so, for the simple reason that we had taken a decision in the Constituent Assembly, as every Member of this House will remember, that the elections will take place at a certain time, and under that Resolution directions were issued to various States to prepare their electoral rolls. Most Members of the House must have noticed a statement which was recently published in the Statesman or the Hindustan Times stating the progress which the various States have made in the matter of the preparation of the electoral rolls. Now, those electoral rolls prepared by the various States were made on the basis of the qualifying period and the qualifying date.
Obviously, unless the House comes to the conclusion that the labours which have been devoted by the various States to the preparation of the electoral roll ought to be thrown overboard ( Shri Sondhi : Who says that?) and that we should in this Bill fix a qualifying date and a qualifying period which would be much nearer the preparation of the electoral roll than the existing ones have been, it seems to me absolutley clear that it would not be possible for the Select Committee or for me to accept a new qualifying date and a new qualifying period.
Shri Sondhi : Can we not have supplementary lists ?