Mr. President, this a very simple article and I do not think the House need take long to pass it. It refers only to adjustments in respect of certain expenses and pensions. Mr. Kamath has moved an amendment to substitute ‘arbitrator’ by ‘tribunal’. I would suggest to him that it is wholly unnecessary to transform a mere arbitrator into a tribunal with all the expenditure that it will involve. These are likely to be small cases and one person appointed by the Chief Justice to give an award so as to ‘adjust the expenditure between the Union and the States would be quite enough. They are not likely to be very complicated cases nor is there like to be great feeling on either side in fighting these cases. But I would ask one question from Dr. Ambedkar, viz., whether there would not be cases between the Union and more than one State on the one hand, and on the other hand between one and more than one State so as to require adjustment and arbitration, In 267 there is a provision for arbitration between Union and one State only. Nowhere the word State has been used in plural and there is no provision also for adjudication as between two States. I do not think it is possible to interpret this article so as to mean that the singular includes the plural and I therefore think it is either deliberately or has been inattentively omitted. I would like myself to be satisfied whether it is impossible that cases are likely to arise of distribution of expenditure between two individual States. I cannot conceive that it is unimaginable because they refer to a variety of cases. In this first para, it is stated as follows :-
“Where under the provisions of this Constitution the expenses of any court or commission, or pensions payable to or in respect of a person who has served before the commencement of this Constitution under the Crown in India, are charged on the revenues of India or the revenues of a State etc.“