730 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
provinces by their Advocates-General that this was an office of profit. In fact I have a case in mind where a certain Government Pleader had to resign on this account I do not know whether any such case had arisen in Assam. May be it had arisen ; may be it had not arisen. An uncharitable interpretation might suggest that a lawyer who is a Government Pleader ought to have been aware of the position.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I was informed that the hon. Mr. Wajed Ali himself was the Member and he wanted an opportunity to speak.
Dr. Ambedkar: If he speaks then I won’t speak. But he one day came to me—I forget the day—and asked me whether he was disqualified. I think he will agree with me that I told him he was disqualified, that that was my view, and that any Member of Parliament who is a Government Advocate in a Province was disqualified. I told him that. He said that he was very sorry and that he did not know that. Thereupon I said that there may be provision for condonation and so on and so on and told him “You better make a representation to the proper quarters”. I think he represented the matter to the Speaker, if I remember correctly, and the Speaker referred the matter to me that in view of the fact that the Member has stated definitely that he was not aware of this ruling and had continued to hold that office the Government might consider his case also for indemnity.
On that basis we did include his case. That is all I have to say.
Shri Kamath: The Coal Inquiry Committee was constituted after March, 1950, after the Constitution came into force. Why was this aspect of disqualification not considered at the time the Committee was constituted ?
Dr. Ambedkar: Mr. Kamath, these are all very good and very nice points but as I feel Government was not very particular or very meticulous in applying Article 102 because we were working on an ad hoc basis. The whole trouble was created by the fact that so far as the Constituent Assembly