Sir, when I moved my motion for the consideration of this Report I did not anticipate any long debate on this question. I thought that there would be plenty of opportunities for scrutinising the clauses, omitting some clauses, if necessary, that may be considered objectionable or improving any if need be. Now that the debate has taken place I want to place before the House certain aspects of the proceedings of the Committee which will give the House an idea that this is neither a haphazard Report nor a report cooked or uncooked. It is carefully considered Report. There were two schools of thought in the Committee and there was a large number of very eminent lawyers who could scrutinise every word of every sentence, even commas and semi-colons, from a very critical point of view. These two schools viewed the matter from two different angles. One school considered it advisable to include as many rights as possible in this Report–rights which could straightaway be enforceable in a court of law, rights in regard to which a citizen may without difficulty go straightaway to a court of law and get his rights enforced. The other school of thought considered it advisable to restrict fundamental rights to a few very essential things that may be considered fundamental. Between the two schools there was considerable amount of discussion and finally a mean was drawn which was considered to be a very good mean. It must not be understood, because this Report is called an Interim Report, that the second Report will be much bigger, or that many more important things will come under the subsequent report. It cannot, in the nature of things, be that the principal report which comes before the House would be containing less important things. Very essential things have been included in this Report. But there is another report which has to be considered and that is the report on fundamental rights which are non-justiciable. There may be other points that may strike this House or may be suggested from outside which may have to be considered and the Committee may take them into account. But I may inform the House that this Report has gone through three Committees. Of course the third school of thought was absent in the Committee. That school would require that under the fundamental rights which were provided for a free India there should be no police, there should be no jail, there should be no restrictions on the press, the baton, the lathi or the bullet. Everybody should be free in a free India to do what he likes. That school was absent in the Committee. But the two schools of thought that considered this Report studied not the fundamental rights of one country alone but of almost every country in the World. They studied all the Constitutions of the world and they came to the conclusion that in this Report we should include as far as possible rights which may be considered to be reasonable. On that there may be difference of opinion in this House and this House is entitled to consider every clause from a critical point of view and to suggest alterations, modifications or omissions but what I have moved in this House, now is, that this Report may be taken into consideration. Therefore, I thought that any elaborate speech was not necessary and hence I suggested that whatever has to be considered, or whatever suggestions have to be made, may be made at the time when clauses are considered. As I told the House there are about 150 amendments, though the time given was about ten hours or so. The House contains members who are very studious, very critical and very well-informed and therefore it is to the credit of the House that we have got as much as 150 amendments in such a short space of time. I think if we proceed at this rate we will debate perhaps for a much longer period than we expect. So, I suggest that the Report be taken into consideration, and if that is accepted, we may take clause by clause.
