70 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
As the House will remember, the scheme of the Government of India Act, 1919, was to divide, so far as the Provinces were concerned, the field of administration into two parts: the transferred part and the reserved part. The House will also remember that under the old Government of India Act the superintendence and control of the civil and military Government of India was vested in the Secretary of State in Council. It was also provided that the Governor-General in Council as well as the Governors would carry out their respective duties of administering this country, subject to the power of superintendence and control of the Secretary of State. When the field of administration was demarcated into the reserve and transferred sides in 1919, a rule was made that those subjects which were classified as ‘transferred subjects’ were not to be under the supervisory control either of the Secretary of State or of the Governor-General or of the Governor, because they were administered by Ministers who were responsible to the Legislature. Now, the question that arose under the provisions of the 1919 Act was this : whether it was possible for the Central Legislature to ask a question with regard to the administration in the Provinces. The researches that I have made—and I am grateful to the Secretariat of the Speaker for the help they have rendered me in this connection—show that the then President of the Assembly took the view that in so far as the question related to transferred subjects, he would not allow them, but if they referred to ‘reserved subjects’, he would allow them subjects to the sanction of the Governor-General. You will recollect that such sanction was necessary, because the Assembly worked under both Rules and Standing Orders. The Rules were made by the Governor-General, which sometimes restricted the scope of Standing Orders. Therefore, his permission was necessary. But the principle was conceded that in so far as the administration continued to be under the superintendence, direction and control of the Governors, of the Governor-General and ultimately of the Secretary of State, it was possible for a Member of the Central Legislature to ask a question relating to those subjects and the President, subject to other conditions being fulfilled, would admit that