I shall, now, deal, Sir, with the point raised by Sir B. L. Mitter’s amendment. His amendment says that this power of pardon in this particular Clause should be limited to Provinces. Of course the Indian States are not concerned with how we divide the power of pardon between the Centre and the Provinces. That particular amendment is motived by the facto which are now in existence in the Indian States, namely, that it is the Ruler who has the power of pardon in respect of every offence for which conviction is obtained in his courts. Now, the objection to excluding the President from power to grant pardon in such cases cannot hold, Sir, on any ground of principle., because of the other consideration that I asked the House to take in to account in considering questions of pardon, namely, that the authority which makes the law and the executive which is responsible to it, whose function it is to execute the law, cannot be deprived of the power to decide the policy with regard to the grant of pardons, remissions, reductions, and so on. Therefore the power in respect of federal offences has necessarily to vest in the President of the Federation. The amendment that has been tabled by me took note of one element what I apprehended was, a certain amount of sensitiveness a delicacy on the part of the Rulers who may not be willing to part with any portion of the power which, they now exercise as regards pardon of sentences, and so on, and the further sensitiveness that, if you vest a concurrent power in any portion of that field in an outside authority, it would mean a certain amount of clash and conflict between the way in which the. Ruler of a State might choose to exercise this power and the manner in which the President of the Federation might choose to exercise it.
