364 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
the States shall have the exclusive power to make laws in relation to any entry in List II, which means that Parliament shall not have the power to make laws with regard to any item in List II. If Members of this House would refer to List II, they will notice that Entry 1 in that List refers to public order. Public order is one of the categories of heads of legislation which we are introducing for the first time in clause (2) of article 19, by this amending Bill. It is therefore quite clear that if you were to give Parliament power to make law in respect of public order which is included in List II, and which according to article 246(3) confers exclusive legislative jurisdiction upon the States, then it is obvious that such an amendment would require the ratification of the States. Now the intention of the Government as well as of this House, I think on this point is quite clear, namely, that we do not propose to make any amendment to any clause which would require the assent or the ratification of the States. From that point of view, I think, all those who have tabled this amendment would agree that it is not possible to accept that amendment without involving this particular Bill in a great difficulty which it would not be possible for this House to overcome within the time within which we propose to carry through this measure.
As the Prime Minister said yesterday, all of us have sympathy with the proposal, namely, that if it were possible Parliament should be given the power to legislate. We have also sympathy with the suggestion that the President may have the right to give his assent before the Bill becomes law. But the question that has to be considered is, is such a thing necessary ? Is it not contained in the very provisions of the Constitution ? Now, let me refer hon. Members to the heads of legislation we are introducing in the present clause and the place, they have in the various entries in Schedule Seven.
Take the security of the State. There is no particular entry of this nature—security of State—for the simple reason that the security of the State can be affected by a variety of entries and the power is necessarily distributed under different heads. At the same time hon. Members will see that entry 1 of List