46 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
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*RESOLUTION RE. EXTENSION OF PERIOD MENTIONED IN SECTIONS 2 AND 3 OF INDIA (CENTRAL GOVERNMENT AND LEGISLATURE) ACT, 1946 AS ADAPTED.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Minister for Law): Sir I move :
“In persuance of the proviso to section 4 of the India (Central Government and Legislature) Act, 1946, as adapted by the India (Provisional Constitution) Order, 1947, this Assembly hereby approves the extension of the period mentioned in sections 2 and 3 of the said Act for a further period of twelve months commencing on the first day of April, 1948.”
Now, Sir, it is not necessary for me to enter upon a very lengthy discussion in support of this resolution. It will suffice if I tell the House that the Central Legislature has passed various legislations imposing controls on commodities, requisitioning land, and so on, matters which are purely in the Provincial List. This power the Centre was able to exercise because of the proclamation of emergency which was issued by the Governor-General when the war broke out: and as the House knows, since the proclamation is issued by the Governor-General the Central Legislature gets the necessary power to make any order or to pass any law notwithstanding the fact that the subject falls in the Provincial Legislative List. It is also provided in the Government of India Act that this power of legislating upon provincial subjects would disappear six months after the Proclamation of emergency has been withdrawn. Now this power was exhausted in the year 1946. The Government of the day felt that although technically the emergency had disappeared, yet factually there did exist a certain urgency for the controls imposed by the Central Legislature to be continued. There was no
- C.A. (Leg.) D., Vol. II, 25th February 1948, pp. 1228-29.