196 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
authority is really no delegation at all, and therefore, Parliament is quite competent to enact a measure which conforms to this particular test. I think I cannot do better than read from a judgment of the High Court of Australia which deals with this matter. I will, of course, later on specifically cite an authority on this very point raised by the Bill. The case is Meakes Vs. Dignan, 46 Commonwealth Law Reports, page 117. This is what Mr. Justice Evat says :
“ The Statesmen and Lawyers concerned in the framing of the Australian Constitution, when they treated of ‘legislative power’ in relation to the self-governing colonies, had in view an authority which over a limited area or subject-matter, resembled that of the British Parliament. Such authority always extended beyond the issue by Parliament itself of binding commands. Parliament could also authorise the issue of such commands by any person or authority which it chose to select or create. “Legislative power” connoted the power to deposit or delegate legislative power because this was implied in the idea of parliamentary sovereignty itself. It was of course always understood that the power of the delegate or depository could be withdrawn by the Parliament that had created it, and in this sense Parliament had to preserve ‘ its own capacity intact’.”
I can read many passages : but I do not wish to trouble the House. In deciding the question whether Parliament can lawfully delegate, the test to be applied is this : whether Parliament has kept its capacity intact to withdraw the authority which it has deposed in somebody else. Therefore, the question that has to be considered so far as the first question is concerned, whether Parliament can delegate, is to examine the causes in order to find out whether the test that has been laid down is fulfilled or not, whether there is anything in this Bill which prevents Parliament from resuming that authority. That is one point.
Now, on this very question I am glad to say that there is a ruling of the Privy Council reported in House of Lords, Appeal Cases, Volume 10, on page 282. The case is exactly on a par with the present one. There, the legislature of one of the Commonwealth countries passed a law permitting the Governor, which of course means the Executive, to levy a customs duty on certain articles which were not mentioned in the schedule attached to the Customs Act, some new article or similar article.