PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 747
or some other provision might be introduced into the treaty, whereby voluntary transfer of nationality may be made a condition of cession. As it involved citizenship and nationality, the British Government always felt that it was desirable to place before Parliament any treaty though it was made by the prerogative of the king and by virtue of which did not require the sanction of Parliament. It was felt that Parliament should be given a voice in determining the nationality of the people in the territory which was being ceded.
The third thing is that under the English law, while it was the prerogative of the king to transfer territory, the treaty by itself could not affect the right of the people. If for the performance of the treaty certain existing laws were abrogated or affected, then the treaty itself was not competent to do it. It required a separate sanction of Parliament to alter those laws which regulated the rights, obligations and liabilities of the people in order to bring them in conformity with the provisions of the treaty.
These were the principal reasons why under the English law, although the right to transfer territory was a prerogative of the king, the British Government introduced the practice of placing all such treaties before Parliament for sanction. That is the reason why the Government in this case felt that it was desirable to bring this matter before Parliament and obtain its sanction, because in this very Bill I do not exclude the possibility of Parliament introducing certain changes with regard to the nationality of the people in the territory which is sought to be transferred to a foreign State like Bhutan.
These are my submissions with regard to the various points raised. My first submission is that it is not necessary to rely on Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, because they relate to a different matter. The purpose of this Bill and that of this treaty come under entries 14 and 15 in legislative List No. I of the Seventh Schedule. In my judgment, according to the interpretation put upon the content and the ambit of these two entries, it is sufficient to give authority to Parliament to sanction a measure of this sort.