872 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Bill was lying in the file of the Finance Department till in
1952 my hon. Friend, probably in doing the work of the office duster, found a copy somewhere. And what did he do ? It is an interesting thing. The Select Committee said that they could by some suitable amendment get over the difficulty of the Law of Mitakshara. My hon. Friend has made some effort to get over that difficulty and he has got over that difficulty by practically destroying the Mitakshara law. Clause 7 says that if a person below 18 dies, then there will be no estate duty but if a coparcener dies in a condition in which we describe him under the Hindu Law as the sole surviving coparcener, then estate duty may be levied. Well, Sir, if my hon. Friend can in this roundabout method defeat the Mitakshara Law, could he not have the courage to say, by bringing in another Bill or by inducing his colleague the Law Minister to bring in another Bill, that the Mitakshara Law is abolished ? So, Sir, these are some of the points which I wanted to make. Mitakshara Law is notionally destroyed, because under the Mitakshara Law there is no such thing as the passing of the property, because the property is already his by birth. There is no question of the passing of property. It is a wrong notion. I do not know who has told him about it. Under the Mitakshara Law property does not pass. As soon as a child is born, the property becomes his and the father’s share is reduced. What passes therefore on the death of the father ? Nothing. As soon as a son is born, the father’s share is affected. Supposing he has a second son, as he is likely to have, and the first child happens to be so unlucky as to have a brother, then the share is still further reduced.
Sir, I am told that there are some 44 countries in the world which have passed such a law, viz. Estate Duty Law. I have not got the list with me, but I am sure very few of the Southern Asiatic Countries have passed any such law. There is hardly anything remaining with them. As the report of the Committee shows, they have nothing to pass on. Our great problem is. “How shall we accumulate ?” We hate capitalists and I do too. I Have all my life lived in Parel in a chawl of the Improvement Trust, Room No. 50. If people go there, they ‘ might visit it. I paid originally Rs. 3-8-0 as rent for my room