PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 379
General of the State and also the Attorney-General of the Government of India, because, in this matter, they are the final advisers of the Government and on whose advice alone the Government could act. The number of Acts in the Provinces are legion : the number of Acts made by the States are equally large. One can well imagine the amount of time which would be necessary in order to go through the process which I have detailed here before the Central Government could come to the conclusion that a particular law must be declared to be null and void or must be modified in certain parts in order that it may be brought into line with the Constitution and the President may accordingly issue an Order. It is therefore not quite so easy as some people in the House seem to think. It is a very elaborate and labourious process.
After all, what is the President in this matter? The President is a law making authority. His authority is practically co-extensive with the authority of Parliament. But, in order that it may be done in an expeditious manner, we have vested the President with this particular power. I am sure that so important and so crucial a power of law-making practically could not be exercised in a hurried manner and to make some kind of a change may be absolutely inappropriate and quite unjustified. These are the reasons why it has not been possible for the Law Ministry to complete the task and why the Law Ministry thinks that perhaps one more year may be necessary. It should also be remembered in this connection that the Law Ministry has been now for the last three months practically busy with the work of elections, preparing the two Representation of the People Bills, delimitation of constituencies, considering the amendments that are coming to the Order of the President delimiting the constituencies etc. They will also be busy with making rules and all sorts of other things relating to the elections and these are matters which are now outstanding before the Law Ministry. And especially in view of the limited staff of the Law Ministry, I cannot see how any spare staff can be found or how time can be found to be devoted exclusively for the purposes of carrying out the object laid down in article 372. Therefore,