PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 509
REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (NO. 2) BILL
The Minister of Law (Dr. Ambedkar): I beg to move:
“ That the Bill to provide for the conduct of elections to the Houses of Parliament and to the House or Houses of the Legislature of each State, the qualifications and disqualifications for membership of those Houses, the corrupt and illegal practices and other offences at or in connection with such elections and the decision of doubts and disputes arising out of or in connection with such elections, as reported by the Select Committee, be taken into consideration.”
In the few observations that I propose to make in support of the motion, I wish to draw the attention of the House to the changes made by the Select Committee in the Bill and also to the changes proposed by some of the Members of the Select Committee in their minutes of dissent. The House will agree that the Bill is a very big one, extending to about 169 clauses. The Select Committee has made changes in various clauses of the original Bill and it is hardly possible for me to deal with every single change proposed by the Committee. I think it would be enough if I were to draw the attention of the House to the most important changes which have been made by the Select Committee.
So far as I see, I find that the Select Committee has made four important changes in the original Bill. The first clause in which important changes have been introduced is clause 7, which deals with the disqualifications for being chosen and for being a Member of Parliament or of a State Legislature. The House will recall that the clause as it stood originally had only three cases of disqualification in it. The first disqualification in the original Bill was founded on a conviction for an electoral offence, either connected with corrupt practice or an illegal practice. The second disqualification in the Bill was founded on a conviction for
*P. D., Vol. 2, Part II, 9th May 1951, pp. 8348-70.