PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 919
(51)
CONSTITUTION (THIRD AMENDMENT) BILL, 1954
- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay) : Mr. Deputy Chairman, the Bill which is placed before this House raises two issues and it is desirable that the two issues should be considered separately. The first issue relates to the merits of the Bill, whether this Bill should be regarded as a good Bill on its own merits; and the second issue is, the manner in which this Bill is being carried through parliament. I shall say a few words on the merits of the Bill.
It is quite obvious that there is nothing new in this Bill. What the Bill seeks to do is to drop entry No. 33 in the Concurrent List and to substitute in place of that entry, the provisions contained in Article 369 as they stand now, with a small addition that is export of jute; otherwise, there is really no fundamental change at all and it is a mere substitution. Looking at it from this point of view, I cannot see how there can be any objection to the Bill as proposed by the Hon. Minister in charge of it. The only kind of dispute that could arise would be whether the provisions of Article 369 should be in the State List—List II—so that the States will have exclusive power or whether they should be placed in List I so that the Centre would have an exclusive power in dealing with these goods. The present position is this : According to Article 369 these matters or these goods are treated as though they are entered in the Concurrent List. That is the present position. In the Concurrent List, both the Centre as well as the States have the power to legislate. Therefore, looking at the present position as defined in Article 369 and entry
33, we find that both of them place these matters in the Concurrent List. It cannot be that the States can complain that any jurisdiction which was vested in them by the Constitution is being taken away by this amending Bill. The
- P. D., (R. S.), Vol. 7-B, 15th September 1954, pp. 2297-2303.