PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 775
Shri Santhanam: I would just add one more word to what the Hon. Law Minister has said. The only construction of the word “resignation” is that the resignation should be formally notified by the authority concerned before it becomes operative. Otherwise all kinds of complications will arise. Suppose a letter is delivered at your house and you are not there. And you come after, say, four days. Can it be taken that the day it was delivered at your house it becomes operative ? In such cases the real construction is the one I have given.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : But we are not on that point.
- Pandit Maitra (West Bengal) : Sir, I want you and also the hon. Members of the House to very carefully bear in mind that for the action we are taking now there is no precedent. A point of Constitutional law has been raised and it is of very great importance. We have no precedent whatsoever to go upon, either in May’s Parliamentary Practice .........
Dr. Ambedkar: Oh, yes.
Pandit Maitra: I know May’s Parliamentary Practice lays down certain forms of penalty, e.g., censure, admonition, putting into jail etc.—all these things are nothing new. The point that has been raised by my hon. Friend, the Home Minister, if it is logically followed up, comes to this : that once a proceeding is started it can never be terminated. Is that the legal position ? It is coming to this, that if the hon. Member had died last night—I am taking a hypothetical case—would you proceed with it ? In giving its decision I am asking the Chair to bear these things in mind. It is a Constitutional point. The point is whether a Member ipso facto vacates the seat as soon as he delivers his letter of resignation to the Chair. I do not agree with my hon. Friend Mr. Santhanam that there should be a time-lag between the presentation of the resignation and its acceptance ; nowhere in the Constitution is it provided that it should be accepted or that you may or may not accept it. The law provides, the Constitution provides that the
- P. D., Vol. 14, Part II, 24th September 1951, pp. 3251-54.