PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 711
fact that the ban contained in Article 102 had come into operation. That is one justification why this Bill has been brought in : that if many of those members of committees and commissions had been asked to quit it would have created great administrative difficulty. In view of the fact, therefore, that it was in the interest of the Government to permit these Members to continue in their offices and discharge their functions, it is undoubtedly the obligation of the Government to remove the disqualification which they were in effect induced to incur. That is one reason why this Bill has been brought in.
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A second reason why this Bill has been brought in is because many members who look offices after the 26th January
1950 (when the Constitution came into operation), according to the submissions that they have made were unaware, or rather unconscious that the Constitution did contain such a provision. According to the submissions that they have made it was a case of misunderstanding : they did not realise what exactly was happening. And it seems to me that although there is a general rule of law that ignorance of law is no excuse, in a matter of this kind we must accept the bona fides of Members who have submitted that they did not, in fact, know that they were incurring a disability of this sort. If hon. Members were to analyse the categories of persons and offices which have been mentioned in the Bill, they will realise that the Members who are given this indemnity fall in either of the two cateories : one category is of those who were holding the offices long before the Constitution came into existence ; the second category is of those people who believed in a bona fide manner that they were not incurring any disqualification under Article 102. That is the basis on which the Bill has been constructed.
I might also inform the House as to the principles on which the Government is acting so far as this Bill is concerned and so far as the general principle of disqualification arising out of an office of profit is concerned. The Government takes the view that it is not desirable to apply the teachnical rule of