PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 363
*Dr. S. P. Mookherjee : ………. Before I take my seat, I once again request the Prime Minister to consider the main purpose of my two amendments with regard to the substitution of the word ‘Parliament’ in the place of ‘State’ or if that is not possible, at least to provide that the laws passed by the States in this behalf will be subject to the President’s assent. If that is done, it will, to a great extent, remove the difficulties which stand in our way.
The Minister of Law (Dr. Ambedkar): My only excuse for intervening in this debate is to clear certain points which relate to the constitutional provisions which are necessarily involved in the amendments which have been tabled. In the first place, I propose to deal with the two amendments together : the first amendment is that Parliament should have the exclusive power to make laws under the provisions which are now being introduced in the proposed clause (2) of article 19 and the second is that, if that is not possible, the President should have the power to give his assent to any law made under this new proposed clause and unless that assent was given, that law should not be deemed to be valid.
With regard to the question of bringing in Parliament, there are two aspects to the matter which, I think, it is desirable to consider carefully. One is this: Is it possible to give exclusive power to Parliament to make a law in a field which is covered by the new clause (2) ? On this matter, I should like to invite the attention of the House to article 368 which deals with the amendment of the Constitution. That article specifies certain classes of amendments to the articles “of the Constitution which would require the ratification of the States before the amendments could be deemed to have been validly passed. I do not propose to go over all the different categories that have been set out in article 368. I content myself by reference to only one and I refer to Chapter I of Part XL Article 368 says that if any article which forms part of Chapter I of Part XI is amended, then such an amendment will require the ratification of the State. It will be noticed that article 246 clause (3) falls in Chapter I of Part XI. That article says that
- P. D., Vol 12, Part II, 1st June 1951, pp. 9861-69.