582 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Officer alone is authorised to accept them, then he will have to be present all the 24 hours in the station. That is not always possible.
An hon. Member : It is only from eleven to three.
Shri Barman : But, it goes on all the days. Even the assistant receives the nomination papers. He will only have to scrutinise whether the nomination paper tallies with the voters’ list, and whether the deposit has been made. Scrutiny is done by the Returning Officer on a fixed date.
Dr. Ambedkar : I do not understand why my friend is objecting to the acceptance of the nomination paper by a highly important officer such as the Assistant Returning Officer and prefers to lodge the paper with an assistant.
Shri Santhanam : The point is that the Assistant Returning Officer should be able to accept the nomination paper at any time without reference to the Returning Officer.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : The proviso says that the Returning Officer alone shall perform these functions. Three categories of functions are taken away from the Assistant Returning Officers. Normally, all the functions which a Returning Officer can discharge, can also be discharged by the Assistant Returning Officers. The earlier portion of the proviso says that these following three functions shall not be discharged by the Assistant Returning Officers except under an extraordinary circumstance, namely, that the Returning Officer is unavoidably prevented from performing the said function. Out of these three categories, he wants to remove one category. That means, that it is only in the case of scrutiny and counting of votes that the Assistant Returning Officers shall be prevented from discharging them unless the Returning Officer is unavoidably prevented. With respect to the acceptance, even if the Returning Officer is there, the Assistant Returning Officer may receive. Or, if he is not there, his unavoidably being prevented from performing the said function does not arise. Let us assume that he is not unavoidably prevented. He may come in at any time. The Assistant Returning Officer may receive. There is no harm. With respect to scrutiny and