892 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Let my friend deny it or let him correct me. He knows something about this bank evidently. The capital of this bank is somewhere near Rs. 33 crores. Now, according to the classification that has been adopted by the Sen Award, the Sastry Award and of the Appellate Tribunal, this bank ought to be placed under A class banks, because A class banks are banks whose working capital is Rs. 25 crores or above. Certainly this bank as I said, ought to be in the A class and the scale prescribed by Government ought to be applied to this bank. Apparently there seems to be no ground. Evidently this bank for some reason which I am unable to understand, was in troubled waters. It applied to the Sastry Committee and asked for some exemption. The Sastry Committee gave it exemption up to 31st December 1954. They said “After that date the Award will apply to you.” When the matter went to the Appellate Tribunal, this bank which was not satisfied with the concession given to it by the Sastry Committee, again applied for further exemption, and the Tribunal was pleased to extend the period of exemption up to December
1955, and the Government in its notification specifying the modifications which they wanted to make said : “This Award shall not apply to this bank at all.” I hope that my friend does not say that it shall never apply to them. I hope it will apply to them some day. It requires some justification as to why the Government was so biased in favour of this particular bank as to set aside the limited concession that was given by the two previous tribunals and exempted it altogether. There is no justification whatsoever.
Now, there are other points to which I wish to draw the attention of the house. I find that in certain respects the Government ought to have modified the Award but has not modified, and the first point which, I think the Government ought to have taken into consideration as a point requiring modification is the system of classification that was adopted from the very beginning, from the Sen Committee down to the labour Appellate Tribunnal. Now, Sir, I should like to give just one illustration to show how absurd has been the classification. Take Class A banks. Class A banks are banks with a working capital of Rs. 25 crores or more. It does not