684 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Now, I come to the question about the lawyers. I do not know whether my Friend, Mr. Chaudhuri has gone ( An hon. Member: He is here). There are two different questions that have been put. The question that has been put by Mr. Chaudhuri is this: There are many people, lawyers, I mean, who are engaged by the various Governments to be their Government pleaders ; either they are paid a salary or they are paid a retainer and for every case that they do, they are paid a certain amount of money according to rates prescribed. He wants that a Government Pleader who has been engaged by a Government as its lawyer should not be disqualified from being a Member of the Legislature. As one of our friends here has referred to the matter, a lawyer who is a Government Pleader has been held long long before to be a person holding an office of profit. That seems to me to conclude the matter and if we wish, notwithstanding the provisions contained in Article 102 of the Constitution, to remove the disqualification, then there must be some good ground for saying that a Government pleader may be excluded. I do not think that my hon. Friend, Mr. Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri has adduced any argument. He has only appealed, I believe, to my sympathy and to my professional interest in the lawyers (Interruption). Well I am not going to commit any kind of indiscretion or illegality for the purpose of helping my own profession.
The other question that was raised was by my hon. Friend, Mr. Khandubhai Desai. His complaint has taken me by surprise, I must say. His complaint was that there were many lawyer Members of Parliament who appear before the different members of Government for their clients and charge fees, and that that also happens in the local legislatures. I say I am completely surprised at it because a lawyer has the right to practice in a court of law and I do not know whether there is any law which says that a Minister in the administration of a department is a court. Therefore, a lawyer cannot insist upon exercising the constitutional right that has been given to him to practice his profession, to go before a Minister and obtain a hearing. If any Ministers in the Government of India—they will forgive me—are permitting