PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 9
Forests Act and the Tolls Act. Now, Sir, without any intention of casting any reflection upon the work of the Committee, I think it will be agreed that the production of five laws in a period of eleven years is certainly not an enormous piece of work which could be expected from a Committee of this kind. On the other hand when the Committee was dissolved and when the responsibility fell upon the Government of India to do the work which the Committee was appointed to do—if I may say so again without reflection on the work of the Committee or without trying to take any credit for the Legislative Department of the Government of India—the Acts produced after the Committee were the Sale of Goods Act,
1930, the Partnership Act, 1932, Factories Act, 1934, Tariff Act, 1934, Petroleum Act, 1934, Insurance Act, 1938, Motor Vehicles Act, 1938 and Arbitration Act, 1940. Any one who knows these Acts will admit that each one of them is an enormous piece of legislation, The reason why the Statute Law Revision Committee failed to fulfil the promise which it was expected to fulfil was that there was a great defect in composition and constitution of the Committee. First of all, the Committee consisted of six members ; it was elected mostly from members of the legislatre. No doubt the members who were elected were elected purely on the basis of their legal knowledge and legal acumen, but in my judgment that was a pure accident. The Chairman of the Committee was the President of the Council of State. I fail to understand what virtue there was in appointing the President of the Council of State as Chairman of this Committee which, as all of us know, requires specialised legal knowledge.
The second difficulty about the Committee was that its members were not paid members. I do not wish to suggest that if members are not paid they do not discharge the duty which all people are conscientiously required to do. But it did happen, and it is a fact, that the Committee met very seldom. The members of the Committee having been drawn from the legislature met only during the sessions, and when they were asked that now that they were present in Delhi they might devote some portion of their time to the discharge of their functions as members of the Statute Law Revision