Sir, the necessity for this article being inserted in the Constitution is this: The House will remember that the composition of the Upper Chamber was originally set out in paragraph 14 of the report of the Union Constitution Committee. In that paragraph it was stated that the Drafting Committee should adopt as its model the Irish system nominating fifteen members of the Upper Chamber out of a panel constituted by various interests such as science, literature, agriculture, engineering and so on. When the Drafting Committee took up this matter, Sir, B. N. Rau, who had in the meanwhile gone on tour, had a discussion with Mr. De Valera and the other members of the Irish Government as to how far this system which was in operation in Ireland had been a successful thing, and he was told that the panel system had completely failed with the result that the Drafting Committee decided to drop the provision suggested in paragraph 14 of the report of the Union Constitution Committee, and proposed a simple measure, viz. to endow the President with the authority to nominate fifteen persons the Upper Chamber representing special knowledge or practical experience in science, literature and social services. After the Drafting Committee had prepared this Draft, the matter was again reconsidered by the Union Constitution Committee and at this session of the Union Constitution Committee, the Committee proposed that the total number of nominations which was originally restricted to fifteen should be divided into two classes, viz., that there should be a set of people nominated as full members of the House and they should have special knowledge and practical experience in art, science, literature and social services and that three other persons should be nominated as experts to assist and advise Parliament in the matter of any particular measure that the Parliament may be considering at the moment.
