Actually, the provision was fairly carefully framed so as to give the maximum amount of latitude to each province to decide whether or not to have a second Chamber. Some of my honourable Friends have referred to the manner in which this decision was arrived at. Sir, after the particular rule was passed by this House, at the appropriate time the Secretariat of the Constituent Assembly sent summons for Members representing each particular province to meet on a particular day and arrive at a decision whether or not to have a second Chamber. Sir, I think it is not disclosing any confidence or making any breach of confidence if I say that I was one of those who stoutly opposed the introduction of second Chamber so far as Madras province was concerned in the meeting of the representatives of that province and I was outvoted, but I do not think that merely because the decision of a large number of Members who represented my province ran counter to my own views that I could take advantage of the discussion on this clause to go against not merely the decision of the legislators of my province but also against the decision arrived at by this honourable House on the 18th July 1947. Sir, the proper course undoubtedly would be, for such of the Members as feel that this is not the proper thing to do, to take advantage of Rule 32 of the Rules of procedure of the House and have the whole question mooted once again by getting the requisite number of Members to sign a requisition for reopening this particular question. That is the proper way to go about this business and I do feel that, though the House can ordinarily reject this particular article 148 either in its entirety or a portion of it,–there is nothing to prevent a sovereign House from doing a thing which it wants to do,–I think in all decency we cannot go against a principle which has been accepted on the 18th July 1947, a principle which was further supported by meetings of the representatives of the various provinces meeting separately and deciding whether or not a particular province will have an Upper House. It is a different matter completely if this House should decide that the constitution of the Upper House should be different from what it was decided on the 18th July 1947, or what is mentioned in this Draft Constitution as drafted by the Drafting Committee. I shall have something to say about that at the appropriate time. But we are perfectly entitled to say that the Upper House shall be elected in entirety by the Lower House, that the Upper House should be nominated in its entirety by the Governor, that the Upper House should be elected from all kinds of mushroom constituencies, that the Upper House should only represent labour and not vested interests or conversely that the Upper House should only represent vested interests and not labour, or that there should be equal representation of both, and it may or may not have representatives of functional interests in the province–all these things are matters in which the House has got perfect liberty morally to go into and make appropriate changes if it so feels disposed. But I do feel that in view of the commitments that we have already entered into on 18th July 1947 and a further reinforcement of that commitment agreed to by the fact that representatives of provinces have to second Chambers in those particular provinces which have been enumerated by the amendment moved by my honourable Friend Dr. Ambedkar, I think it is not right for the House to go further into the original question as to whether or not a particular province should have an Upper House and the matter should therefore be left at that and the article should be accepted in the form in which it has been presented to the House.
