And the Draft as it stands in Draft Constitution may stand. I mean the original one as circulated by the Drafting Committee and given in the new draft under italics–that should remain. Sir, most of us will agree with the new change made in article 22 by amendment No. 545 providing the proviso that the Advisory Board would not be able to detain a person in spite of a revision of his case for more than the period prescribed by law, but however a change is now sought to be made in clause(7). It raises a certain doubt in our minds. None of us at any stage believed that the Advisory Board would at any stage take the place of Parliament; it was only suggested that in the absence of any law if a person were to be detained for more than three months, then the matter would go before a judicial body which would look into the case and allow further detention if need be in the absence of any law prescribing detention for more than three months. The doubt we have in our minds today is that under this new amendment proposed by the Drafting Committee where it says in clause (7) that Parliament may prescribe the circumstances of detention “without obtaining the opinion of an Advisory Board in accordance with the provisions of sub-clause (a) of clause (4)” makes us feel that suppose if Parliament has got the power–and we do not content that it has not–of laying down a law by which a man can be detained for more than three months, even so, if any person came under the jurisdiction of that law, would it mean that the case of that person would not go for a judicial review before an Advisory Board? Could the Parliament dispense with the constitution of Advisory Board itself ? Sir I suggest that that should not be and the process of review before an Advisory Board should be kept intact even if it may be perfectly legal for Parliament to enact a general law providing for detention beyond a period of three months. If in the Constitution you have statutorily provided for the detention of a man without trial for a period of three months you have taken away a part of the sting of that measure by providing an Advisory Board which would look into the matter and give a judicial review of the case and decide whether further detention was justifiable or not. If this is not done the man would be dealt with in accordance with the law of the land which Parliament may enact. In the new draft you have specifically said that the Advisory Board need not be consulted. If it means that in the making of the legislation that Board need not be consulted, we are in full agreement and possibly there can be no objection to it. But if it is meant that if a general law provides for the detention of persons for more than three months, and if after the general law has come into force a man innocently has got under the clutches of that law, it seems as the clause now reads in the Constitution that a detenu’s case need not go to an Advisory Board at all. Parliament may be empowered not to constitute an Advisory Board at all for even the judicial review of individual cases and that you are going to leave the formation of such a Board to any future law that Parliament may make. I therefore, suggest that the wording of clause (7) of article 22 should remain as it was stated by the Drafting Committee and this particular reference of not consulting the Advisory Board which raises that legitimate doubt in our minds be removed. At no stage we though that the Advisory Board was to take the place of Parliament or was to be a law giving authoritative body. It was meant to be a judicial committee on which people of the stature of judges of the High Court would be sitting and would be a substitute for the ordinary channels of law denied to a detenu and therefore I would suggest in the drafting of this clause, the provision that such a Committee would be constituted in any case wherever a man is detained. That should be explicitly stated here and should not be left to an ambiguous interpretation. With these words, I move my amendment.
