Amendment No. 3030 of the printed List of Amendments is a vital amendment, which is to the effect that the President’s order declaring that the fundamental rights or any of them shall remain suspended-that order shall be subject to the approval of Parliament. We have already provided for that in articles 275 and 278. In 278 it is laid down that any proclamation made shall be laid before Parliament for its approval. In article 275, clause (2) (b) and (c), it is specifically laid down that the proclamation shall be laid before Parliament for its approval. Does this mean that once this proclamation is approved by Parliament the President is free to do by order as he likes? If that be so, it is a pernicious article. The suspension of fundamental rights is not an ordinary matter. It is a very grave matter. I will go so far as to say that it is even graver than the gravest emergency with which the State may be confronted. Do we in that eventuality empower the President to declare by order that these fundamental rights, conferred by article 13 shall be suspended? I hope that will not be done. I hope that is not the intention of this House. In whatever form this article may have been brought before the House today. I hope that the House will not adopt this in a hurry : on the contrary, that it will give it mature consideration. I trust that the House will consider this matter in greater detail and will amend it suitably so as to provide more safeguards. I only wish through my amendment to see that any order made by the President in this regard-namely with regard to the suspension of, fundamental rights shall, similarly to an emergency Proclamation, be laid before Parliament and if Parliament approves, well and good: if Parliament rejects it, then that order should not have any force. As I have stated, though we hope and pray that the President may be a wise man, there is no guarantee in the Constitution that a philosopher-king-whom my honourable Friend Mr. Brajeshwar Prasad wants to be in the highest office of the State-will be elected. Human failings and human imperfections there will be. If the President decrees that all the fundamental rights are suspended, there is under the proposed article no provision for Parliament considering the matter. My Friend, Prof. Saksena, has tabled a little more radical amendment. I for my part, will be satisfied that, if the President passes an order before Parliament is convened, that order is laid soon before Parliament for it to debate on and approve or reject it. We are pleading, Sir, in season and out of season, that we are passing through a crisis. I am sure that the Italian Constituent Assembly, when it met two years ago soon after World War II was over, was faced with no less grave a crisis. There was danger of upheaval within the State and Communist were rising against the State. Italy was a border State between the Russian bloc and the Western bloc and it was wedged in between the two, and it, was thus subjected to various stresses and strains. Even then, the Italian Constituent Assembly which adopted the Constitution in 1947 did not go so far as we are going today. What did they do? They were faced with a very grave crisis, the Communist near-insurrection within the State : and as we all read in the papers the other day, there were free fights within the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian Assembly when the Atlantic Pact was ratified. The Constituent Assembly adopted, however, an article, with a view to meeting the grave crisis confronting the State, but they provided adequate safeguards, and the relevant article in their Constitution reads thus: “When in extraordinary cases of necessity and urgency, the Government on its own responsibility adopts provisional measures having the force of law, it must on the same day” (in the U.K. the Act provides that Parliament must be summoned in five days) “present it for conversion into law by the Chamber which, if dissolved, should be convoked for the purpose and assemble within five days. The decrees lose effect as on the date of issue if not converted into law within-60 days of their publication. The Chambers may, nevertheless, regulate by law political relationships arising from decrees not converted into law.”
