186 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
of its protected character,—the proviso was added to it. Therefore, my submission is that there is nothing unconstitutional in Parliament making a law repealing a law made by the State Legislature in the concurrent field.
With regard to the other point whether you can make a general omnibus law repealing certain laws, it seems to me that there again there is nothing improper in that. What are we doing by having this omnibus law? What we could have done was to have hundreds of Acts, each one dealing with a specific law, saying that we repeal this Act; another Act saying that we repeal that; and a third Act saying that we repeal a third one. Instead of doing this kind of thing, we did it in a collective manner.
Shri M.A. Ayyangar : You could have added a schedule here.
Dr. Ambedkar : That also might have been done. There are various ways of doing it. I do not deny that some ways, in some cases, may be better than others, but so far as the general principle involved in the Bill is concerned, I do not think that there is anything unconstitutional or contrary to the practice of the Draftsman. My friends will see that I have, for instance, introduced a Bill called the ‘Part B states Bill’ in the present session, to which there is a schedule attached. Every one of the Acts is mentioned there. The reason is, as I will explain when the matter comes up, that certain laws could not be applied without certain adaptation. Therefore, a schedule had to be introduced that this law shall become operative subject to this adaptation. There are certain others such as Cooch-Behar where no such schedule exists, because adaptation requirements are not necessary. That might come up today or tomorrow. We, therefore, have a general clause and I do not think that there is anything unconstitutional or improper in the sub-section which is contained in my hon. Friend’s Bill.