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far as the powers given in clause 19 are concerned, the wording is, “prescribe the power, duties and functions of the registering authority and the local limits of their jurisdiction.” If a rule can be made that it will be the duty of the registering authority to look into the structure of the ship also, then I think this lacuna may be covered. But I leave that to the House to decide. If the hon. Minister wants to change the wording. I will certainly permit an amendment at this stage.
Shri S. C. Samanta (West Bengal) : May I suggest that we say, “mechanically or otherwise defective”?
Shri Santhanam: You are making it more vague.
Pandit Munishwar Datt Upadhyay (Uttar Pradesh) : If the word “mechanical” is dropped and only “ defective” remains, then all sorts of defects can be covered by the rules.
The Minister of Law (Dr. Ambedkar): May I say a word as it strikes me? I have not seen the Bill and therefore I am speaking from such impression as I have formed. The main object of the Bill is to secure safety. Now, safety depends, so far as I understand it, upon the mechanical structure of the ship and not upon structure in the sense of its shape or size. Therefore a distinction, I think requires to be made between the two, the structural defect which has nothing to do with the ship, and the mechanical defect which has something, in fact greatly, to do with the safety of the ship. The object of the Bill is to secure safety and therefore emphasis must necessarily be laid upon the mechanical side of the ship and not so much upon the structural side. A man may have, for instance, an oblong ship; a ship may be something whose bottom may be very different from the others.
Shri Sidhva: That is a defect.
Dr. Ambedkar: What I want to know is, what is a structural defect? One man may say, “ From my point of view it is a structural defect. It ought to have been in some other shape.” Another man may say, “ It ought to be of some other shape.” The submission I am going to make is this, that the Bill aims at securing the safety of the passengers; the safety of the passengers essentially, mainly, fundamentally depends