PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 157
its application to certain persons who may have temporarily left their places of ordinary residence and gone to stay somewhere else. It is felt necessary that such a provision ought to be inserted in this clause. This refers to persons who are sent outside India temporarily on official duty and in whose case it may be presumed that they have ceased to reside in the place of their ordinary residence. It is to prevent that kind of presumption being drawn in their case and to retain their right to be registered in the constituency in which they have been ordinarily residing that this provision is made.
Similarly, this provision is also intended to apply to the case of Ministers, for instance, at the Centre who, having regard to the fact that they have accepted certain offices under the State, presumably intend to stay here during the term of their office which might be co-terminus with the term of Parliament itself, namely five years. There again, it might be presumed that they have ceased to reside in the place where they have been ordinarily residing. It is to cover that case also that it is felt that some such provision is necessary.
It was also suggested to me that Members of Parliament as distinguished from office-holders, such as Ministers and so on, may be affected by the other presumption, namely that as they come here often they may also be deemed not to reside in the place where they are ordinarily resident. But on advice I feel that that presumption cannot be applied to them, for the reason that when a man temporarily for some specific reason leaves his ordinary place of residence and goes somewhere else, it cannot be presumed in law that he has abandoned his intention to revert to his original place of residence. Consequently, I don’t think that that provision is necessary in the case of Members of Parliament. In the other two cases it seems that it may be necessary and as a measure of precaution I propose to introduce this amendment.
The motion was adopted:
Clause, as amended, was added to the Bill.