Sir, that is the present state of things. The Union Powers Committee met again after the 28th of April at a time when even the Indian Independence Bill had not been introduced in Parliament. We knew of course that such a Bill was going to be introduced, but we were not quite sure at the time we settled our second report what the provisions of that Act would finally look like. Well, we did make that report. We have since had this Independence Act. What we have now is a Dominion and a Dominion if I may describe it–possibly it has been described so in the adaptations of the Government of India Act–I am not sure of it because we are yet to be supplied with copies of the Gazette Extraordinary which is supposed to have been issued on the 14th night or the 15th morning: but I take it, Sir, that that adaptation describes this Dominion as a Union comprising those Provinces of what was British India as have not seconded into the new Dominion of Pakistan. It comprises also those Indian States which have acceded to the Dominion. When I said Provinces, I should have referred to two kinds of provinces that we have in this country, namely, the Governors Provinces and the Chief Commissioners, Provinces. In addition to that, there may be other areas which may be included in the Dominion. Thus we have really a Federal Union now in this country, and that Federal Union will have to be administered in accordance with the provisions of the Indian Independence Act and the Government of India Act as modified. Now, Sir, we, in this report of the Union Powers Committee, have nothing to do with the Federal Union which now exists. What we are attempting to establish is a Federation in the future, and, in considering what that Federation should be, we have got to take note of the essentials that any Federal Constitution has to provide for, and one of the essential principles of a Federal Constitution is that it must provide for a method of dividing sovereign powers so that the Government at the Centre and the Governments in the Units are each within a defined sphere, co-ordinate and independent. Perhaps I may quote for the information of the House the definition in orthodox terms of what a Federation should be as visualized by thinkers on political science, by people who have engaged themselves in the framing of Federal constitutions. Here, for instance, is a description which I take from the Report of the Royal Commission on the Australian Constitution in 1929. For this definition the person responsible was Sir Robert Garran, a name very well known in the history of Federal Constitutions. He describes Federation as “a form of government in which sovereignty or political power is divided between the central and local governments so that each of them, within its own sphere, is independent of the other”. I call this, Sir, an orthodox definition because, if we look round the world and look at the Federal constitutions that are actually in being, I am almost sure that not one of them will be found to conform rigidly to the actual terms of this definition. The line between the Centre and the Units is not so definitely fixed as this definition would assume. There are relations between the Centre and the Units There are cases where the Units have to depend upon the Centre. There are controlling powers vested in the Federation in emergencies, when the Federation could override the jurisdiction of the Units and take over things into its own hands: so that this absolute independence of functioning, which is contemplated in the definition, has not been realised in practice. But there is one fact which stands out in the history of Federations, and that is this: it is necessary for us to demarcate the sphere within which the Centre on the one hand and the Units on the other could exercise sovereign powers, and that is really at the back of all the attempts that have been made in the various Federations to demarcate the subjects which should be assigned to the Centre and the subjects which should be assigned to the Units or retained by the Units, or retained by the Units, according to the view that is taken as to where residuary power should finally be lodged.
