780 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
it was open to you to accept the resignation subject to the fact that certain words and phrases used by Mr. Mudgal could be expunged and the resignation made proper as a result of this expunction. My submission to you, Sir, is this. No doubt it is open to the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker or for that matter anyone sitting in the Chair to expunge any part of the debate which he thinks is defamatory, indecent or unparliamentary or undignified. But the point that I wish to submit is this, that the authority of the Speaker to expunge any part of the record relates only to anything said in the course of the debate. I should like to read Rule 176 of the Rules of Procedure. Rule
176 deals with report of proceedings. Rule 176A deals with expungment of matter and says:
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“If the Speaker is of opinion that a word or words has or have been used in debate which is or are defamatory, or indecent, or unparliamentary, or undignified, he may in his discretion order that such word or words be expunged from the proceedings of the house.”
As you will see, this rule is confined to anything said in the course of the debate. I submit with all respect that the resignation tendered by Shri Mudgal can by no stretch of the meaning of the word be regarded as anything done in the course of the debate. It therefore stands quite outside the proceedings of the House and therefore there is no power in the Speaker to expunge the words which admittedly both (I believe) in the opinion of the house as well as in the opinion of the Government are such that they are not liable to be expunged on the grounds mentioned in Rule 176-A. Therefore, Rule 176-A would not permit the Chair to apply the provisions contained therein to the application for resignation by Shri Mudgal. Therefore, the application must be treated as it stands without any kind of expungment and my submission is that the application should not be treated as an application for resignation ( Interruption. )
Pandit Kunzru (Uttar Pradesh) : On a point of order.
Dr. Ambedkar: I have not finished.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: He is rising to a point of order. Let us hear him first.