PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 675
“166A. Special provisions with respect to Rulers of former Indian States —(1) If the Ruler of a former Indian State is nominated as a candidate for any election under this Act, the provisions of sub-section (i) of section 87B of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (Act V of 1908) and of sub-section ( 2 ) and ( 3 ) of section 197A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (Act V of
1898), shall not apply in relation to such Ruler during the period commencing on the date of his nomination as such candidate and ending on the date on which the result of the election is published under section 66, and shall not apply thereafter in relation to any proceedings for questioning the validity or regularity of such election under Part VI of this Act or in relation to any criminal proceedings against such Ruler for any offence under Chapter IX-A of the Indian Penal Code or Chapter III of Part VII of this Act alleged to have been committed by him at or in connection with such election.
(2) In this section—
(a) “Candidate” has the same meaning as in section 78;
(b) “former Indian State “ means any such Indian State as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify for the purposes of this section.
(c) “Ruler”, in relation to a former Indian State, means the person who for the time being is recognised by the President as the Ruler of that State for the purposes of the Constitution.”
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Amendment of Dr. Ambedkar moved.
Prof. K. T. Shah: Sir, we cannot follow the amendment. Will you please give us some explanation ? Are the Rulers also going to be candidates and will they be exempt from the Criminal Procedure Code ?
Dr. Ambedkar: The position is this. As the House will remember, when the report of the Select Committee was discussed, it was suggested that the ruling princes should be disqualified from being members of a legislature. Various grounds were urged. One of them was that they were holding a sort of office of profit under the Government of India by virtue of the engagements that they had with the Government of India and under which the Government of India had agreed to give them certain sums annually. I then said that it did not appear to me that this was an office of profit and therefore, it could not come under the provisions of the article in the Constitution which deals with the holders of offices of profit. I also said at the time when the matter was discussed that